What Does Job 40:18 Mean?
His bones are channels of bronze, and his frame is like bars of iron.
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
His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind “bones” also carries the sense of strength, locating the creature’s might in its inner frame.
THE MEANING
The creature’s bones are described as bronze and iron, so its strength belongs to the frame that bears its body. The verse makes that hidden structure part of what is visible now: the body’s force rests in what is beneath its surface.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Strength is only an outward display. This verse locates it in the inner structure that bears the body.
THE ROOT
עֲצָמָיו
atzamav
GROWS FROM
ע־צ־ם
ʿ-ṣ-m
Bone or substance; the same root also yields the sense of being strong or mighty.
The word translated “bones” comes from עצם, which also forms עָצוּם (atzum), “mighty.” Hebrew holds bone and strength in the same word family: the creature’s might is carried in its own frame, rather than fitted onto it from outside.
ALSO GROWS
etsem: Bone; substance or frame.
עֶצֶם
This is the singular form behind the verse’s word for bones, placing the creature’s strength in its bodily frame.
atzum: Mighty, strong.
עָצוּם
This related form makes the root’s link between the body’s bones and strength audible.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents the hidden bodily frame as a bearer of strength, health, and integrity.
My bones are not hidden from you, as I am made in the hiding place, and embroidered in the lowest depths of the earth.It is healing to your navel, and a drink to your bones.For these things happened, so that the scripture might be filled. A bone of him shall not be crushed.THE THREAD
My bones are not hidden from you, as I am made in the hiding place, and embroidered in the lowest depths of the earth.Job’s “bones” and Psalm’s “substance” share the Hebrew word family עצם (etsem), bone or frame. Job describes strength carried by that hidden structure; Psalm says the same frame is not hidden from sight.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us