What Does Job 6:29 Mean?
Turn, I pray you; let there be no crookedness; turn again, my alignment is in it.
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
Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity; yea, return again, my righteousness is in it.THE KEY
The doubled call to return makes justice a second look: judgment must turn back before it can see the rightness already in the matter.
THE MEANING
When judgment falls on you, this verse keeps open the possibility that the judgment itself has become unjust. The speaker names his rightness as still present within the matter and asks that it be seen again.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being accused does not, by itself, make you guilty; the judgment can be what has gone wrong.
THE ROOT
שׁוּבוּ
shuvu
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
Turn back; return, come back.
“turn” in this verse is shuvu. The two returns are not redundant: the first interrupts injustice, and the second insists on another look. This root also names restoration, so the call can carry the force of bringing judgment back to what is right.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: Return, turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
It names a return as movement back toward what has been left, matching Job’s doubled call.
yeshovev: He brings back, restores.
יְשׁוֹבֵב
The same root can describe restoration, giving Job’s call the possibility of bringing a judgment back to what is right.
צִדְקִי
tsidqi
GROWS FROM
צדק
ts-d-q
Rightness, justice; alignment with what is right.
The phrase does not make righteousness an abstract badge: צֶדֶק (tzedek, rightness or alignment) is located within the matter itself. The line pairs a demand to return with the claim that rightness remains there to be recognized.
ALSO GROWS
tsaddiq: A righteous or just person.
צַדִּיק
This branch describes a person in terms of the rightness at stake in Job’s claim.
tsedaqah: Justice, righteousness.
צְדָקָה
It shows the same root extending from rightness into the practice of justice.
עַוְלָה
ʿavlah
GROWS FROM
עול
ʿ-w-l
Act unjustly; injustice or wrong.
“crookedness” in this verse is ʿavlah. The word translated “iniquity” names injustice or wrong, and it is paired here against צֶדֶק (tzedek, rightness or alignment). That contrast makes the judgment itself part of the question: the response to an accusation can also be unjust.
ALSO GROWS
ʿawel: Injustice, wrong.
עָוֶל
It names the wrong Job asks his listeners not to commit.
ʿawal: To act unjustly.
עָוַל
It makes injustice an action, not only a condition attributed to the accused.
THE PATTERN
A return can interrupt injustice and restore attention to the rightness already present.
He turns back my living soul; he leads me in the tracks of alignment for the sake of his nature.Turn back, Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled in your crookedness.My brethren, if anyone among you wanders away from the truth, and someone turns him back.THE THREAD
He turns back my living soul; he leads me in the tracks of alignment for the sake of his nature.The word behind “restoreth,” יְשׁוֹבֵב (yeshovev, “he brings back” or “restores”), grows from שׁוּב (shuv, “return”), the root repeated in Job. In Job, return is demanded of judgment; here the same movement restores the soul.
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