What Does Job 6:17 Mean?
When they glow, they go still; in the heat they are concealed from their place.
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
What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.THE KEY
The stream is not merely reduced by heat; the words picture it being cut off and extinguished.
THE MEANING
Something that seems dependable while conditions favor it can vanish when the heat comes. Here the flow loses its place and goes out, leaving no trace of the abundance it seemed to promise.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that what appears abundant now must be dependable: a flow can disappear when its conditions change.
THE ROOT
נִדְעֲכוּ
nidʿakhu
GROWS FROM
דעך
daʿakh
To go out, die down, or be extinguished.
The word translated “consumed” is also used of a flame or light going out. The stream’s disappearance and a light’s extinction share one root, making the heat seem to snuff out what had looked present.
ALSO GROWS
daʿakh: To go out or be extinguished.
דָּעַךְ
The basic form makes the stream’s loss resemble a flame dying down.
yidʿakh: Will go out or be extinguished.
יִדְעָךְ
This form describes a light going out, echoing the stream’s extinction in this verse.
נִצְמָתוּ
nitzmatu
GROWS FROM
צמת
tsamat
To cut off or bring to an end; by extension, to disappear.
“go still” in this verse is nitzmatu. The Hebrew word carries the force of being cut off, not simply becoming less visible. The stream’s disappearance is abrupt: heat ends the flow that once filled its channel.
ALSO GROWS
tsamat: To cut off or bring to an end.
צָמַת
The basic form reveals the force behind the stream’s vanishing.
haṣmithem: Cut them off.
הַצְמִיתֵם
This command form uses the same root for bringing something to an end, sharpening the finality of the stream’s disappearance.
THE PATTERN
What depends on favorable conditions can disappear when the heat arrives.
O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? For your faithful love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that rises early and goes away.For the sun rises with its scorching heat, and dries the grass, and its flower falls, and the beauty of its shape perishes; so also the rich one withers in his goings.Like clouds and breath with no rain is a man who praises himself with a false gift.THE THREAD
Surely the light of the wicked goes out, and the spark of his fire does not shine.The Hebrew word translated “put out” shares the root דעך with “consumed” in this verse. There a light goes out; here a stream does, the same root reveals their shared image of extinction.
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