What Does Job 39:4 Mean?
Their young gird themselves and grow in the open field. They go out, and they do not return to them.
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
Their young ones are in good liking, they grow up with corn; they go forth, and return not unto them.THE KEY
The young thrive, go out, and do not turn back: here, flourishing includes departure.
THE MEANING
The young are robust and increase in the open; then they go out and do not return to their parents. Their flourishing reaches beyond the place where it began, and separation belongs to the life this verse describes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a flourishing life must remain close to the ones who raised it: these young thrive, then leave.
THE ROOT
יָצְאוּ
yāṣə’û
GROWS FROM
יצא
yatsa
to go out, emerge
“go forth” in this verse is yāṣə’û. The verb describes movement out from one place or state. Paired with the young ones’ increase in the open, it makes departure part of their thriving, rather than a break from it.
ALSO GROWS
yetzi’ah: going out, departure
יציאה
This noun preserves the same movement outward that marks the young ones’ passage from their parents’ keeping.
hotsi: bring out; cause to go out
הוֹצִיא
This causative form shows the same root can describe bringing life out of one place into another.
שָׁבוּ
shāḇû
GROWS FROM
שוב
shuv
to turn back, return
“return not” in this verse is shāḇû. The phrase says the young do not turn back to their parents. Beside יָצְאוּ (yāṣə’û, “they went out”), the verse sets departure and return as distinct movements, and describes only the first.
ALSO GROWS
yashuv: he will return, turn back
יָשׁוּב
This form makes the root’s basic motion clear: turning back toward a former place.
meshûvah: turning away, backsliding
מְשׁוּבָה
This noun carries the same idea of turning, showing how the root can describe a change of direction as well as a return.
יִרְבּוּ
yirbû
GROWS FROM
רבה
rabah
to increase, become many
“grow up” in this verse is yirbû. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of increasing, not only growing taller. The young ones’ increase happens in the open, before the verse describes them going out and not returning.
ALSO GROWS
rav: many, great
רַב
This related form describes abundance, the quality of life developing in the young ones’ increase.
hirbah: increased, made many
הִרְבָּה
This causative form shows the root’s movement toward greater number or abundance.
THE PATTERN
Creaturely life flourishes beyond human keeping while its provision remains within God’s care.
The young lions roar for prey; they seek their food from God.Look at the birds of the air, for they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into storehouses; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?THE THREAD
And he sent a raven, which went out and turned back, until the waters had dried from upon the earth.Genesis uses the same Hebrew roots for “went forth” (יצא, yatsa) and “to and fro” (שוב, shuv) that appear in Job’s “go forth” and “return.” The raven goes out and back; the young ones go out and do not turn back, making their non-return part of the verse’s picture of growing beyond their beginning.
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