What Does Job 9:6 Mean?
Who shakes the earth out of her place, and her pillars tremble.
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
Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.THE KEY
“Place” comes from קום (qum, “rise, stand”), while “pillars” comes from עמד (ʿamad, “stand”), so the verse shows the world’s very standing being shaken.
THE MEANING
God shakes the earth from its place, and even its pillars tremble. What feels fixed beneath you remains within the reach of this movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that stability means immunity to movement: even the world’s pillars tremble.
THE ROOT
הַמַּרְגִּיז
hamargiz
GROWS FROM
ר־ג־ז
ragaz
To quake, tremble, or become agitated; in this form, to cause to quake.
“shakes” in this verse is hamargiz. The same root describes the earth quaking and a person being troubled: Hebrew uses one word family for upheaval in the world and agitation within it. The shaking here is active: what seems immovable is being made to quake.
ALSO GROWS
vatirgaz: The earth quaked.
וַתִּרְגַּז
In 1 Samuel 14:15 this root describes the earth itself quaking, echoing Job’s image of creation in motion.
rogez: Inner or outward turmoil.
רֹגֶז
Job 14:1 uses this related noun for the trouble filling human life, joining cosmic shaking with personal unrest.
מִמְּקוֹמָהּ
mimmeqomah
GROWS FROM
קום
qum
To rise, stand, or arise.
מָקוֹם (maqom, “place”) is built from קום, “rise, stand,” carrying the sense of a standing-place. The earth is shaken from the very place where it stands.
ALSO GROWS
qum: To rise or take a standing position.
קוּם
This is the seed beneath “place”: the word links location with what stands there.
maqom: A place or position.
מָקוֹם
This related form makes the verse’s movement more vivid: the earth’s position itself is shaken.
וְעַמּוּדֶיהָ
veʿammudeha
GROWS FROM
עמד
ʿamad
To stand, remain, or take one’s stand.
The Hebrew calls the pillars עַמּוּדִים (ʿammudim, “pillars”), from the root meaning “stand.” Alongside “place” from קום, this gives the verse two words of standing, and then shows both earth and its supports trembling.
ALSO GROWS
ʿamad: To stand or remain in place.
עָמַד
The root names the very quality expected of pillars, which the verse shows can still tremble.
ʿomed: One who is standing.
עֹמֵד
This related form keeps the root’s standing image in view as Job describes the supports of the earth.
THE PATTERN
What appears cosmically fixed remains within God’s power to shake at its foundations.
The pillars of heaven shake and are stunned at his rebuke.The earth and all who settle in it are melting; I have set its pillars firm. Selah.whose voice then shook the earth, but now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.”THE THREAD
The pillars of heaven shake and are stunned at his rebuke.The Hebrew עַמּוּד (ʿammud, “pillar”) appears in both verses, and in both the pillars tremble. Job 26:11 extends the shaking from earth’s supports to heaven’s.
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