What Does Job 4:13 Mean?
From the branches of the night's sights, when deep sleep falls upon people.
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
In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,THE KEY
The word translated “thoughts” pictures branching divisions, placing the night vision where thoughts branch and waking awareness falls away.
THE MEANING
Your thoughts can still branch as deep sleep falls; the verse places vision in that threshold where waking awareness loosens. What appears there comes as a night vision, not as a conclusion assembled by deliberate reasoning.
THE ROOT
סְעִפִּים
se'ippim
GROWS FROM
סעף
To split or branch apart.
“branches” in this verse is se'ippim. The KJV’s “thoughts” is a rare word that also names branching divisions and appears for competing “opinions.” The image lets the phrase hold both mental movement and division: thoughts branch through the night as awareness sinks.
ALSO GROWS
se'ippim: Divided thoughts, rendered “vain thoughts” in the KJV.
The same word shows how a thought can split or branch, echoing Job’s thoughts in the night.
ha-se'ippim: Divisions or branches, rendered “two opinions” in the KJV.
Here the root makes division explicit, illuminating the branching image inside Job’s “thoughts.”
תַּרְדֵּמָה
tardemah
GROWS FROM
רדם
To sink into deep sleep.
This root names a profound sleep, and its noun and verb forms appear where the sleeper’s awareness has receded. In this verse, branching thoughts and deep sleep meet at the edge of waking consciousness.
ALSO GROWS
nirdam: In a deep sleep.
The related verb form keeps the sense of sinking into profound sleep.
tardemah: Deep sleep.
The same noun places a deep sleep alongside an overwhelming night encounter.
THE PATTERN
Vision and encounter can arrive as ordinary waking awareness recedes into sleep.
And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs and shut the flesh in its place.As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and behold, a terror of great darkness fell upon him.A vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood there, urging him and saying, Cross over into Macedonia and help us.THE THREAD
I hate forked thoughts; but your instruction I love.The rare Hebrew word translated “thoughts” in Job appears here too, where the KJV calls them “vain thoughts.” Its root carries the image of branching or divided thoughts, so the night vision begins amid a mind whose thoughts are still splitting into branches.
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