What Does Job 21:2 Mean in the King James?
Hear diligently my speech, and let this be your consolations.
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 verse makes listening itself a consolation: a sufferer’s unsoftened words can comfort when they are fully heard.
THE MEANING
Your speech is allowed to tell the truth of what hurts, and its full hearing can itself become consolation. The Hebrew doubles the verb “hear,” pressing for real reception, while “consolations” comes from a root also used for relenting or being moved. Here, comfort meets the words as they are.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that comfort must begin with someone explaining away your pain before your words can be heard.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְעוּ שָׁמוֹעַ
shimʿu shāmoaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed
“hear diligently” in this verse is shimʿu shāmoaʿ. The line repeats the verb: literally, “hear, hearing”, an emphatic Hebrew construction behind “diligently.” This root can include heeding, so the request reaches beyond sound to speech being received.
ALSO GROWS
shāmaʿ: Hear, listen, heed
שָׁמַע
This is the action Job presses for: his words must reach his listeners whole.
shemuʿah: A report or something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
The shared root ties the act of hearing to the message received; consolation begins with letting the message arrive.
תַּנְחוּמֹתֵיכֶם
tanhumoteikhem
GROWS FROM
נחם
Console, comfort; also relent or be moved to regret
The word translated “consolations” grows from נָחַם (naḥam), a root also used for relenting or being moved to regret. That range lets consolation carry a response changed by what it hears, rather than a soothing phrase laid over pain.
ALSO GROWS
niḥum: Consolation, comfort
נִחוּם
This noun names the comfort Job says his speech can become.
niḥam: Relent, be moved to regret
נִחַם
This related form opens a sense of comfort as a response moved by what has been heard.
THE PATTERN
Consolation received in affliction can become consolation spoken to others.
This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.THE THREAD
This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.Job calls his words “consolations,” and the psalm calls the sustaining word in affliction “comfort.” Both draw on נָחַם (naḥam, “comfort; console”), opening a connection between a sufferer’s own speech and the word that keeps the afflicted alive.
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