What Does Job 40:11 Mean?
Scatter the burning of your anger, and see every one who is lifted up, and bring him low.
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
Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.THE KEY
The verse’s hidden axis is vertical: the one who rises in pride is forcibly brought low.
THE MEANING
This verse confronts you with a severe image of judgment: wrath is cast outward, and every self-exalting person is brought low. The force is deliberate and complete, reaching each person who stands high in pride.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that self-exaltation places a person beyond consequence is undone here: the proud are brought low.
THE ROOT
גֵּאֶה
gēʾeh
GROWS FROM
גאה
גאה (gāʾāh): rise, be high, grow upward; figuratively, be proud.
“every one who is lifted up” in this verse is gēʾeh. The word translated “proud” carries the image of rising high; the verse’s command to abase answers that ascent with a descent. English keeps the judgment but hides this vertical pairing.
ALSO GROWS
gāʾāh: To rise, be high, or grow upward.
גָּאָה
The verb gives the proud person’s posture a literal upward movement.
gēʾāh: Proud; the feminine form of the adjective.
גֵּאָה
This related form preserves the sense of being elevated that underlies the verse’s image of pride.
וְהַשְׁפִּילֵהוּ
vehashpilēhū
GROWS FROM
שפל
שפל (shāphal): be low or brought low; in the causative, make low.
“bring him low” in this verse is vehashpilēhū. The Hebrew carries a concrete image of lowering: the proud one is made low, brought down from the height the verse associates with pride. The abasement is enacted, not merely spoken.
ALSO GROWS
shāphal: To be low or be brought low.
שָׁפַל
This verb shows the downward movement at the heart of “abase.”
shephelāh: Lowland; low country.
שְׁפֵלָה
The related word for low-lying land gives the root a spatial sense that sharpens the verse’s image of descent.
עֶבְרוֹת
ʿevrōt
GROWS FROM
עבר
עבר (ʿāvar): pass over, cross, or move beyond.
The Hebrew word for rage belongs to the עבר family, whose core image is crossing over. Beside the command to cast the rage abroad, anger appears as a force moving outward with violence.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: To pass over or cross.
עָבַר
Its movement beyond a boundary resonates with rage breaking outward in the verse.
ʿēver: The other side; beyond or across.
עֵבֶר
This branch preserves the root’s sense of crossing from one side to another, deepening the image of wrath moving out.
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly turns self-exaltation into a fall: what raises itself is brought low.
The lifted eyes of man shall be brought low, and the heights of men shall bow down, and the LORD alone shall be lifted high in that day.A man's lifting up brings him low, but weight holds up the low in breath.For everyone who lifts himself will be brought low; and the one who lowers himself will be lifted up.THE THREAD
For you deliver the bowed people; and you bring low the raised eyes.“Bring down” in Psalm 18:27 comes from שפל (shāphal, be low or bring low), the same root behind Job’s “abase him.” The psalm holds the two movements together: the afflicted are delivered, and high looks are brought down.
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