What Does Job 39:7 Mean?
He laughs at the roaring of the city, and does not hear and respond to the shouting of the driver.
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
He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the driver.THE KEY
What God sends free is no longer governed by the city’s noise.
THE MEANING
The verse places before you the wild ass, laughing at the city’s uproar and not heeding the cry of the one driving it. The city can fill the air with noise, but it does not set the creature’s course.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the lie that every life must answer to the loudest human voice.
THE ROOT
נֹגֵשׂ
noges
GROWS FROM
נגשׂ
n-g-s
To press, drive, or exact; by extension, to oppress.
English “driver” can sound like someone merely directing movement, while the Hebrew word carries the force of pressing or exacting. The wild ass does not heed the voice of coercion.
ALSO GROWS
nagas: To press, drive, or exact.
נָגַשׂ
This verb reveals the pressure behind the driver’s cry.
nogesim: Taskmasters; those who press labor from others.
נֹגְשִׂים
The same root names the taskmasters in Exodus 5:6, showing the coercive edge carried by “driver.”
יִשְׂחַק
yischaq
GROWS FROM
שׂחק
sachaq
To laugh or play.
“laughs at” in this verse is yischaq. The Hebrew verb carries laughter and play, giving “scorneth” the feel of an untamed ease before the city’s demands. The creature does not organize its life around the call to obey.
ALSO GROWS
sachaq: To laugh or play.
שָׂחַק
This verb names the wild ass’s response to the city’s tumult.
sechoq: Laughter or derision.
שְׂחוֹק
The noun keeps laughter and scorn within the same word-family, giving the creature’s indifference a vivid edge.
הֲמוֹן
hamon
GROWS FROM
המה
h-m-h
To roar, murmur, or make a tumultuous sound.
“roaring” in this verse is hamon. English “multitude” emphasizes the number of people; the Hebrew word also carries the sound of a swelling roar. The wild ass ignores both the city’s broad clamor and the driver’s particular cry.
ALSO GROWS
hamah: To roar, murmur, or surge with noise.
הָמָה
The verb makes the crowd’s presence audible as uproar.
hamon: A throng, tumult, or roaring multitude.
הָמוֹן
This noun describes the city’s crowd as a mass of sound the creature does not heed.
THE PATTERN
What is released from coercion is no longer governed by the voice that once held it.
Who sends the wild donkey out free? Who looses the bonds of the wild donkey?Our living soul slips free like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we slip free.Stand, then, in the freedom for which the Anointed One set us free, and do not be caught again in the yoke of slavery.THE THREAD
And Pharaoh commanded the same day the drivers of the people, and their officers, saying,The Hebrew word translated “driver” in Job belongs to the same root used for “taskmasters” here: those who press labor from others. That echo reveals that the wild ass does not heed a neutral guide but the voice of one who seeks to drive it.
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