What Does Job 8:2 Mean in the King James?
How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind?
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 calls the words a storm, but the Hebrew calls the storm ruach, the same breath that can build worlds.
THE MEANING
Forceful speech fills the space like weather and presses on the one who hears it. The question asks when words swell until their force outruns their substance. They leave the mouth as breath, yet that breath can still strike like a strong wind.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A forceful voice does not carry greater truth simply because it is forceful.
THE ROOT
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
ר־ו־ח
r-w-ḥ
Breath or moving air; wind.
English separates wind from breath, but both are ruach: the same moving air. Here the words are called a mighty wind, revealing that speech is breath released from the mouth, and breath can carry real force.
ALSO GROWS
breath: Air drawn in and released.
This is the same ruach that the verse pictures as wind, linking spoken words to the breath that carries them.
wind: Air moving with force.
This is the verse’s image for words whose force fills the space and bears down on the hearer.
THE PATTERN
Breath released through speech can carry force that builds or destroys beyond the mouth that releases it.
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!THE THREAD
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.The Hebrew word translated “wind” in Job is the same ruach rendered “Spirit” here. In both verses it carries the image of moving breath: in Job, breath presses like a storm; here, it moves over the waters.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us