What Does Job 37:2 Mean?
Hear and respond to the quaking of his voice, and to the growl that goes out of his mouth.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Hear attentively the noise of his voice, and the sound that goeth out of his mouth.THE KEY
The word translated “sound” shares its root with “meditate”: what comes out of the mouth and what is murmured within belong to one movement.
THE MEANING
You meet the voice in its force: the sound stirs, and an utterance goes out from the mouth. The verse holds the felt vibration and the spoken word together before the message is reduced to something you can paraphrase.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a sound not yet understood is empty noise: its trembling is already part of the utterance reaching you.
THE ROOT
הֶגֶה
hegeh
GROWS FROM
הגה
hagah
To murmur, utter, or muse.
“growl” in this verse is hegeh. The root can describe both an utterance and meditation, the low murmur of words turned over within. The sound going out from the mouth therefore carries a connection to what is quietly spoken or considered within.
ALSO GROWS
meditate: Murmur, muse, or meditate.
הָגָה
Psalm 1:2 uses this root for meditation, linking Job’s outward sound with words murmured inwardly.
speak: Speak or utter.
הָגָה
In Psalm 35:28, the tongue speaks with this root, showing that the same word family moves between inward murmur and voiced speech.
רֹגֶז
rogez
GROWS FROM
רגז
ragaz
To shake, tremble, or become agitated.
“quaking” in this verse is rogez. The word carries the sense of agitation or trembling within what is heard. The voice’s noise is thus more than volume: it is sound with the force to stir.
ALSO GROWS
quake: Tremble or quake, as the earth does in 1 Samuel 14:15.
רָגַז
The same root used for the earth’s trembling gives the voice’s noise a sense of force that can be felt.
rogez: Agitation or wrath, as in Habakkuk 3:2.
רֹגֶז
This branch shows how the word can name a stirred state, giving “noise” a shade of disturbance as well as sound.
THE PATTERN
A voice reaches you as audible force before its meaning is fully resolved.
The voice of the LORD is upon the waters. The God of weight thunders. The LORD is upon many waters.And the sound of the ram's horn walked on and grew very strong. Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice.My sheep hear and respond to my voice, and I perceive them, and they follow me.THE THREAD
But his delight is in the instruction of the LORD; and over his instruction he murmurs day and night.The word translated “sound” in Job shares its root with the word translated “meditate” here. The root joins what goes out from the mouth with what is murmured inwardly.
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