What Does Job 6:20 Mean?
They are shamed because they lean; they come there and are ashamed.
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 were confounded because they had hoped; they came thither, and were ashamed.THE KEY
Here, hope is trust seeking security, and the arrival that should confirm it becomes the moment of shame.
THE MEANING
When you trust something as secure, reaching it can reveal the gap between what you expected and what it can provide. The verse lets disappointment remain sharp: the trust is real, and so is the shame.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that sincere confidence guarantees its object will come through. Their trust is real, yet they still arrive at shame.
THE ROOT
בָּטָחוּ
bāṭāḥû
GROWS FROM
בטח
b-ṭ-ḥ
To trust, feel secure, or rely with confidence.
“lean” in this verse is bāṭāḥû. This is more than a passing wish: the verb carries the sense of placing confidence in something for security. The verse’s painful turn is that reaching what they trusted does not confirm that security; it exposes its failure.
ALSO GROWS
beṭaḥ: Security, safety
בֶּטַח
This branch makes the hope in Job feel like an expectation of safety, not a vague desire.
mivṭāḥ: Confidence, refuge
מִבְטָח
The word’s family connects trust with the place or thing someone treats as refuge, the very reliance this verse shows collapsing.
THE PATTERN
Scripture distinguishes trust placed in fragile supports, which collapses, from trust placed in the LORD, which is not put to shame.
Thus says the LORD, Cursed is the man who leans his full weight upon man, and sets flesh as his arm, and whose heart turns aside from the LORD.Blessed is the man who leans his full weight upon the LORD, and the LORD is his leaning.For the writing says, Everyone who leans their full weight on him will not be put to shame.THE THREAD
My God, in you I lean my full weight. Let me not be ashamed, nor let my enemies leap in triumph over me.Psalm 25 joins the same Hebrew root בטח (bāṭaḥ, trust) to בּוֹשׁ (bûsh, be ashamed), the root behind Job’s “confounded.” Job shows trust followed by shame; the psalm holds that same pair together as a plea for trust not to end that way.
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