The Meaning of Job 13:5 Explained

Job 13:5

KJV: O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom.

YLT: O that ye would keep perfectly silent, And it would be to you for wisdom.

Darby: Oh that ye would be altogether silent! and it would be your wisdom.

ASV: Oh that ye would altogether hold your peace! And it would be your wisdom.

KJV Reverse Interlinear

O that  ye would altogether  hold your peace!  and it should be your wisdom. 

What does Job 13:5 Mean?

Context Summary

Job 13:1-28 - "though He Slay Me"
The sufferer first rebukes his friends, Job 13:4-12. Then he makes an appeal to God, affirming that he was no hypocrite, and asking that his sins, for which he was suffering, might be set down, Job 13:23.
When Job said that he knew himself to be righteous, he was clearly speaking of known sin; he knew, so far as a man may know himself, that he had not committed the sins of which his friends charged him. He could bare his life to the inspection of men and angels, being sure that no accusation of which human law-courts would take cognizance could be established against him. But this is a very different matter with the divine tribunal. When a fuller light had shone upon him from the face of God, when the patriarch had seen Him instead of merely hearing of Him by the ear, then he would "abhor himself and repent in dust and ashes," Job 42:5-6.
Job 13:15 is almost the greatest sentence ever uttered by mortal lips! Let us ask for grace to affirm it. [source]

Chapter Summary: Job 13

1  Job reproves his friends for partiality
14  He professes his confidence in God;
19  and entreats to know his own sins, and God's purpose in afflicting him

What do the individual words in Job 13:5 mean?

Oh that - you would be silent hold your peace and it would be your wisdom
מִֽי־ יִ֭תֵּן הַחֲרֵ֣שׁ תַּחֲרִישׁ֑וּן וּתְהִ֖י לָכֶ֣ם לְחָכְמָֽה

מִֽי־  Oh  that 
Parse: Interjection
Root: מִי  
Sense: who?, whose?, whom?, would that, whoever, whosoever.
יִ֭תֵּן  - 
Parse: Verb, Hifil, Infinitive absolute
Root: יָתַן 
Sense: to give, put, set.
הַחֲרֵ֣שׁ  you  would  be  silent 
Parse: Verb, Hifil, Imperfect, second person masculine plural, Paragogic nun
Root: חָרַשׁ 
Sense: to cut in, plough, engrave, devise.
תַּחֲרִישׁ֑וּן  hold  your  peace 
Parse: V, third person feminine plural
Root: חָרַשׁ 
Sense: to cut in, plough, engrave, devise.
וּתְהִ֖י  and  it  would  be 
Parse: Conjunctive waw, Verb, Qal, Conjunctive imperfect Jussive, third person feminine singular
Root: אֶהְיֶה 
Sense: to be, become, come to pass, exist, happen, fall out.
לָכֶ֣ם  your 
Parse: Preposition, second person masculine plural
לְחָכְמָֽה  wisdom 
Parse: Preposition-l, Noun, feminine singular
Root: חָכְמָה  
Sense: wisdom.