What Does Job 41:23 Mean?
The folds of his flesh cling together, cast onto him, and they do not slip.
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
The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves; they cannot be moved.THE KEY
The word behind “firm” carries the image of something poured or cast into shape: the flesh holds because its parts form one joined body.
THE MEANING
The flakes of flesh cling to one another, leaving no gap between them. Their firmness belongs to the joined form as a whole, which holds its shape without shifting.
THE ROOT
דָּבְקוּ
davequ
GROWS FROM
דבק
To cling, adhere, or stay fast to something.
“cling together” in this verse is davequ. The word pictures attachment: each piece holds to the next. English “joined” can sound like separate parts connected from the outside, while this root carries the closeness of things clinging together.
ALSO GROWS
davaq: To cling, cleave, or stay close.
דָּבַק
This verb names the close attachment that holds the flakes together.
deveq: A joint or joining between pieces.
דֶּבֶק
The word for a joint makes the connection between separate pieces visible in the verse’s unbroken surface.
יָצוּק
yatsuq
GROWS FROM
יצק
To pour or cast, as liquid into or onto a form.
“cast onto him” in this verse is yatsuq. The word translated “firm” carries the image of something poured or cast into shape. The verse presents firmness as a formed unity, with the joined flesh holding together as one surface.
ALSO GROWS
vayyitsoq: And he poured.
וַיִּצֹק
This form describes pouring oil onto a stone; it shows the concrete action carried by the word behind “firm.”
mutsaq: Poured, cast, or molten.
מוּצָק
This form describes cast material, echoing the verse’s image of flesh held in a set, continuous form.
יִמּוֹט
yimmot
GROWS FROM
מוט
To totter, slip, or lose one’s footing.
“do not slip” in this verse is yimmot. The verse denies the root’s basic movement: the flesh does not slip from its place. The same root can describe feet losing their footing, so “cannot be moved” carries the sense of a form that does not totter.
ALSO GROWS
lamot: To totter or slip.
לָמוֹט
This infinitive names the loss of footing that the verse says does not happen.
yimmotu: They totter or are shaken.
יִמּוֹטוּ
The plural form shows how the same root describes parts or foundations losing their hold.
THE PATTERN
A form holds together when its parts remain joined to one another.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.And if one overpowers him, two will stand against him, and a threefold cord is not quickly torn.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
God is in the midst of her; she does not totter; God helps her as the morning turns.The Hebrew root מוט under “moved” here also describes the city that will not totter in this psalm. In both verses, stability appears as something held firmly in place.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us