What Does Job 7:2 Mean?
As a servant pants after the shade, and as the hired hand waits for the wage of his work.
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
As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work:THE KEY
The servant’s longing for shade and the hireling’s expectation of wages reveal one truth: labor naturally reaches toward relief and return.
THE MEANING
You can labor and still long for its shade; the longing belongs inside the experience of work. Your effort also carries an honest expectation of return, while your body reaches for relief.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that longing for relief proves laziness: even the servant’s earnest desire for shade belongs inside the picture of labor.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁאַף
yishʾaf
GROWS FROM
שׁ־א־ף
š-ʾ-p
to pant after, gasp, or long for
“pants after” in this verse is yishʾaf. The desire here carries the force of panting after something, not a passing preference. English conveys its intensity, while the Hebrew also gives the longing the strain of someone who has labored and craves shade.
ALSO GROWS
shaʾaf: to pant, gasp, or long after
שָׁאַף
This verb form makes the servant’s desire feel urgent and embodied.
shoʾef: one who pants or longs after
שֹׁאֵף
The related form keeps longing connected to an active reaching toward relief.
עֶבֶד
ʿeved
GROWS FROM
ע־ב־ד
ʿ-b-d
to work or serve
“a servant” in this verse is ʿeved. The word for servant grows from the same root as work and service, placing this person inside the labor itself. The longing for shade does not interrupt that picture; it rises from within it.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvad: to work or serve
עָבַד
The verb shows the labor contained in the identity of the servant.
ʿavodah: work or service
עֲבֹדָה
This noun makes explicit the shared ground between the worker and the work.
פָּעֳלוֹ
poʿolo
GROWS FROM
פ־ע־ל
p-ʿ-l
to do, carry out, or work
“the wage of his work” in this verse is poʿolo. The word rendered “reward” is tied to work or its yield, so the hireling waits for what labor produces. Beside the servant’s shade, that expected return makes rest and recompense two things toward which labor reaches.
ALSO GROWS
paʿal: to do or work
פָּעַל
The verb identifies the action from which the hireling’s expected return grows.
poʿel: a worker or one who does
פֹּעֵל
This related form names the person through the work they perform.
poʿal: work, deed, or its recompense
פֹּעַל
This noun links the work itself with the yield the hireling awaits.
THE PATTERN
Human labor naturally reaches toward both relief for the body and a fitting return for its work.
On his day you give him his wage, and the sun does not go down upon it, for he is bowed down and carries his living soul toward it. Lest he call out against you to the LORD, and it be missing in you.Sweet is the sleep of the one who serves, whether he eats little or much, but the fullness of the rich does not let him sleep.And remain in that same house, eating and drinking what they give, for the worker is worthy of his pay. Do not step from house to house.THE THREAD
Is there not a term of service for a frail one upon the earth? Are not his days also like the days of a hired hand?Job 7:1 repeats שָׂכִיר (śākhîr, hired worker), the same word translated “hireling” here. The preceding verse frames a human span as a hireling’s appointed service; this one reveals what that worker longs for while laboring.
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