What Does Job 40:20 Mean?
For the mountains lift torn prey to him, where all the beasts of the field laugh.
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
Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for play also carries the sense of laughter, so the scene joins wild nourishment with exuberant life.
THE MEANING
The verse shows the mountains yielding food while the creatures of the field play. The Hebrew verb carries both play and laughter, letting the scene hold nourishment and unguarded animal life together. The wilderness is a place where creatures are fed and have room to play.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the assumption that the wild is only scarcity and struggle: here, food and play share the same landscape.
THE ROOT
יְשַׂחֲקוּ
yəśaḥăqû
GROWS FROM
שׂחק
To laugh, play, or make sport.
“laugh” in this verse is yəśaḥăqû. The Hebrew verb holds play and laughter within one word. English can make the scene sound like mere animal activity, while the root also gives it a note of laughter: the creatures are not only fed, they play.
ALSO GROWS
śeḥoq: Laughter.
שְׂחוֹק
This noun makes audible the laughter already held within the field creatures’ play.
məśaḥăqîm: Playing; those who play.
מְשַׂחֲקִים
This form is used for children playing in the streets, showing the same root can describe play across human and animal life.
THE PATTERN
The living world receives provision within the places where its creatures flourish.
And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to every creeping thing upon the earth, in which there is living soul, I have given every green herb for food. And it was so.There the ships go, and this leviathan you shape to laugh in it.Look at the birds of the air, for they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into storehouses; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?THE THREAD
There the ships go, and this leviathan you shape to laugh in it.The same Hebrew root, שׂחק (ś-ḥ-q), describes the creatures playing on the land and Leviathan playing at sea. The parallel opens the verse into a wider scene where wild creatures have room for play in the places they inhabit.
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