What Does Job 22:23 Mean in the King James?
If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, thou shalt put away iniquity far from thy tabernacles.
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 joins returning to God with being rebuilt and moving crookedness out of the place you inhabit.
THE MEANING
Return to the Almighty is presented as a turning that makes rebuilding possible: you are built up while crookedness is moved away from your dwelling. The verse holds restoration and removal together, describing a life no longer structured around what has bent it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that crookedness is inseparable from your dwelling is undone by the image of moving it away.
THE ROOT
שׁוּב
shuv
GROWS FROM
ש־ו־ב
Turn back; return.
“return” in this verse is shuv. The word names a change of direction, not merely regret or an inward feeling. The rebuilding in the verse begins with that turn toward the Almighty.
ALSO GROWS
shav: He returned.
שָׁב
This form makes return a movement that has actually taken place.
teshuvah: Return; turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
The noun keeps the same idea of turning at the center of the verse’s promise.
תִּבָּנֶה
tibaneh
GROWS FROM
ב־נ־ה
Build; establish.
“built up” in this verse is tibaneh. The Hebrew form means “you will be built,” making the rebuilding something received rather than self-produced. Its root pictures restoration as becoming a sound structure again.
ALSO GROWS
banah: To build.
בָּנָה
This is the root verb behind the promise that the reader will be built.
mivneh: Structure; building.
מִבְנֶה
It makes the verse’s restoration concrete: what is rebuilt is a structure, not just a mood.
תַּרְחִיק
tarḥiq
GROWS FROM
ר־ח־ק
Be distant; in the causative form, make distant.
“Put away” and “far” belong to the same image: the verse describes making distance between crookedness (עָוֹן, avon) and your dwelling. What bends the life is not treated as the dwelling’s permanent center.
ALSO GROWS
raḥoq: Far; distant.
רָחוֹק
This is the state the verse’s action creates between crookedness and the dwelling.
merḥaq: Distance; a far place.
מֶרְחָק
It shows that the root concerns space and separation, not simply rejection.
THE PATTERN
Turning back toward God opens into restoration, while what bends life is named and cleared away.
O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the LORD of hosts.THE THREAD
And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul;It uses the same Hebrew root שׁוּב (shuv, return), making Job’s opening movement part of a wider scriptural pattern. Deuteronomy locates that turning in the whole person, deepening Job’s image of a dwelling rebuilt from its center.
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