What Does Job 6:19 Mean?
The paths of Tema look; the walkers of Sheba stretch toward them.
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 troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them.THE KEY
The Hebrew word translated “waited” also means “hoped,” so this is expectation turned toward an arrival.
THE MEANING
Your attention gathers around what you expect to arrive: eyes look, and hope waits. The verse gives that expectation a shape while leaving the arrival itself unresolved.
THE ROOT
קִוּוּ
qivvû
GROWS FROM
קוה
To wait for, look for, or hope for.
“stretch toward” in this verse is qivvû. The Hebrew word here is not mere delay: qavah also names hope, waiting oriented toward what is expected. Its related noun tiqvah means hope or expectation and also a cord, giving expectation the image of a line held toward what has not yet arrived.
ALSO GROWS
qivvah: Waited for; hoped for.
קִוָּה
This is the same verb family behind the companies’ waiting, joining their delay to expectation.
tiqvah: Hope or expectation; also a cord or line.
תִּקְוָה
The shared root links hope with a cord: expectation reaches toward what is still to come.
THE PATTERN
Hope is waiting with attention fixed on what has not yet arrived.
I have waited for your deliverance, O LORD.But those who wait upon the LORD exchange their strength; they rise on wings like eagles; they run and do not tire; they walk and do not faint.But if we hope for what we do not see, then we wait for it by bearing up under it.THE THREAD
I have waited for your deliverance, O LORD.The word translated “waited” in both verses comes from קוה (qavah), meaning to wait or hope for. Genesis names deliverance as the object of that expectation, giving Job’s watchful waiting a direction.
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