What Does Job 41:17 Mean?
Each cleaves to his brother, fastened together, and they are not parted.
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
They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.THE KEY
The word translated “stick together” comes from a root for catching or seizing, so each scale holds as though it has caught the next.
THE MEANING
The verse shows Leviathan’s scales gripping one another until no part can be separated from its neighbor. The image speaks now of a bond in which nearness has become a hold.
THE ROOT
יִתְלַכְּדוּ
yitlakdu
GROWS FROM
לכד
To catch, seize, or capture.
“fastened together” in this verse is yitlakdu. The verb belongs to a root that often means catching or seizing, so the scales are pictured as more than neighbors: each is held as though caught by the next. The verse’s other joining verb reinforces that grip with the sense of clinging.
ALSO GROWS
lakad: To catch, seize, or capture.
לָכַד
This basic form reveals the gripping force beneath the scales’ joining.
nilkad: To be caught or captured.
נִלְכַּד
This form pictures something held within a grasp, deepening the image of scales locked together.
יְדֻבָּקוּ
yedubbaqu
GROWS FROM
דבק
To cling, adhere, or hold fast.
“cleaves to his brother” in this verse is yedubbaqu. English “joined” and “stick together” can sound like duplicates, but the Hebrew layers clinging with catching. Together, the verbs describe parts that adhere and hold one another fast.
ALSO GROWS
vedavaq: And he clings or cleaves.
וְדָבַק
The same root describes a bond formed by holding fast, rather than simple proximity.
vattidbaq: And she clung or cleaved.
וַתִּדְבַּק
This form shows the root’s sense of attachment as an active, sustained bond.
יִתְפָּרָדוּ
yitparadu
GROWS FROM
פרד
To separate, divide, or part.
“parted” in this verse is yitparadu. The final verb names the separation that the verse says cannot happen. The image is described from both sides: the parts cling and catch one another, while division is shut out.
ALSO GROWS
hippared: Separate yourself.
הִפָּרֵד
This form names the act of parting that the verse excludes.
vayyipparedu: And they separated.
וַיִּפָּרְדוּ
This form makes the contrast clear: the scales cannot become parted from one another.
THE PATTERN
A bond becomes inseparable when each part holds fast to the next.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.And they lifted up their voice, and wept again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.from whom the whole body, joined together and knit by every joint that supplies, according to the working in the measure of each part, makes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.THE THREAD
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.The Hebrew root דבק, “to cling,” appears in both Job’s joined scales and the word translated “cleave” here. That shared root opens joinedness as an active hold, not simply pieces lying beside one another.
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