What Does Job 40:17 Mean?
He moves his tail like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are interlaced.
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 moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.THE KEY
The tail, Scripture’s word for the rearward end, usually marks what is exposed or low, yet here it moves like a cedar and carries startling force.
THE MEANING
The creature’s strength reaches all the way to its tail, while its sinews are tightly intertwined. The KJV’s “stones” is a euphemism for its testicles, placing that strength in the creature’s reproductive body as well.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The body’s rearward or less prominent part is necessarily weak.
THE ROOT
זָנָבוֹ
zanavo
GROWS FROM
ז־נ־ב
z-n-b
Tail; the rearward end. In verb form, to strike at the rear.
The same root names the tail and describes striking what is behind. Job makes that rearward end cedar-like and tightly bound with sinews, so the part that can be exposed is also part of the creature’s formidable strength.
ALSO GROWS
zanav: Tail; the rear end of the body.
זָנָב
This is the creature’s tail, the part the verse compares to a cedar.
wayezannev: Struck at the rear or hindmost (Deuteronomy 25:18).
וַיְזַנֵּב
This verb from the same root connects the tail with the vulnerable rearward edge.
THE PATTERN
Scripture uses the tail to mark the rearward or subordinate edge, while Job gives that edge startling force.
He moves his tail like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are interlaced.How he met you on the road, and struck down the rear of you, all who lagged behind you, when you were spent and worn; and he had no awe of God.THE THREAD
How he met you on the road, and struck down the rear of you, all who lagged behind you, when you were spent and worn; and he had no awe of God.The verb translated “smote the hindmost” grows from the same zanav root as “tail.” Job places cedar-like force at the very rearward edge that this other verse marks as exposed.
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