What Does Job 15:3 Mean in the King James?

Should he reason with unprofitable talk? or with speeches wherewith he can do no good?

Job 15:3 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The question’s sting is that an argument can sound like reasoning while producing no profit at all.

THE MEANING

This question presses on the words reaching you now: reasoning can continue while giving no one anything useful. The verse measures speech by whether it benefits, not by whether it fills the air or sounds like an argument. It leaves open the difference between speaking and doing good.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

A forceful or elaborate argument must be useful simply because it is an argument.

THE ROOT

יוֹעִיל

yôʿîl

GROWS FROM

יעל

y-ʿ-l

Be useful, benefit, or avail.

“do no good” in this verse is yôʿîl. The line asks whether these words actually yield benefit, not whether they sound persuasive. Its first half uses ⁨יִסְכּוֹן⁩ (yiskōn, be useful or profitable), a different root, so the parallel tests the speech twice with distinct words for usefulness.

ALSO GROWS

hôʿîl: Benefit; be of use.

הוֹעִיל

This verbal form makes usefulness an effect something can have, not a quality claimed for it.

tôʿelet: Benefit; usefulness.

תּוֹעֶלֶת

This related noun names the practical value that the verse asks speech to produce.

הוֹכֵחַ

hôḵēaḥ

GROWS FROM

יכח

y-kh-ḥ

Prove, decide, or argue; the root also carries the sense of reproof.

The word translated “reason” belongs to the language of making or testing a case. The question therefore reaches beyond whether someone is speaking: it asks whether the argument establishes anything that helps.

ALSO GROWS

hôḵîaḥ: Prove, show, or reprove.

הוֹכִיחַ

This verbal branch gives the argument its force as a case being presented or tested.

tôḵēḥāh: Reproof or correction.

תּוֹכֵחָה

This noun shows that argument can aim to correct, while the verse asks whether it accomplishes any good.

THE PATTERN

Speech shows its worth by the effect it has on those who hear it.

There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.

Proverbs 12:18 · KJVThe verse weighs words by their effect, setting speech that wounds against speech that brings healing.

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.

1 Corinthians 10:23 · KJVIt distinguishes what can be said or done from what is actually useful and builds others up.

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

Ephesians 4:29 · KJVIt describes speech in terms of the good it gives to the people who hear it.

THE THREAD

Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the LORD.

Jeremiah 23:32 · KJV

Jeremiah uses the same Hebrew verb ⁨יוֹעִיל⁩ (yôʿîl, benefit or be of use): these words “shall not profit this people at all.” The shared root makes Job’s test concrete: speech is measured by whether it gives its hearers any benefit.

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