What Does Job 2:3 Mean in the King James?

And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.

Job 2:3 · 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.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

Job’s wholeness remains in his grip even as he is destroyed without cause.

THE MEANING

Your integrity and your injury can occupy the same moment; harm does not by itself disclose guilt. The verse names the devastation as causeless and keeps its agency in view: the LORD says the Adversary moved him against Job.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

If you are suffering, you must have done something to deserve it.

THE ROOT

תֻּמָּה

tummāh

GROWS FROM

תמם

tamam

to be complete, to come to completion

The noun translated “integrity” comes from a root meaning completeness. English can make integrity sound like an abstract moral score; here, the root carries wholeness that Job continues to hold amid devastation.

ALSO GROWS

tām: whole, blameless

תָּם

Job is called tam in Job 1:1, tying his uprightness to the same language of wholeness.

tāmīm: whole, complete, sound

תָּמִים

This branch makes the root’s sense of intactness audible beneath the English word “integrity.”

tāmam: to be complete, to come to an end

תָּמַם

The verb names completion itself, the seed beneath the noun for Job’s integrity.

מַחֲזִיק

maḥazīq

GROWS FROM

חזק

ḥazaq

to be strong or firm; to take hold

“holdeth fast” in this verse is maḥazīq. The verb comes from a root whose branches include becoming strong, making firm, and holding fast. Job’s grip on his wholeness is expressed with the language of firmness, even while the assault continues.

ALSO GROWS

ḥāzaq: to be strong, to grow firm

חָזַק

This verbal branch shows the firmness contained in “holdeth fast.”

ḥāzāq: strong, firm

חָזָק

The adjective shares the root’s sense of strength with Job’s act of holding on.

ḥizzēq: to strengthen, to make firm

חִזֵּק

This branch shows the same root working as an action that makes something firm.

THE PATTERN

Scripture names suffering as causeless without treating it as evidence against the sufferer’s integrity.

Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause.

Psalm 35:19 · KJVThe speaker names hatred as without cause, so hostility itself does not establish guilt.

But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.

John 15:25 · KJVThe verse preserves the distinction between being hated and deserving that hatred.

For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.

1 Peter 2:19 · KJVThe text directly names grief that is endured wrongfully, separating suffering from culpability.

THE THREAD

God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.

Job 27:5 · KJV

Job 27:5 uses the same word for “integrity,” ⁨תֻּמָּה⁩ (tummāh), from ⁨תמם⁩ (tamam), meaning to be complete. The wholeness he holds fast here is the same wholeness he later says he will not remove.

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