---
title: Job 31:23 (JPS 1917) — For calamity from God was a terror to me, and by reason of His majes… · tree and pragmatics
description: For calamity from God was a terror to me, and by reason of His majesty I could do nothing. Who acts: calamity, I. Job 31:23 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Job 31:23 · JPS 1917

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For calamity from God was a terror to me, and by reason of His majesty I could do nothing.

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**Who acts:** calamity, I · **What happens:** be, do · **To what, where:** terror, me, nothing

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This is Job 31:23 · JPS 1917 in the English of the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 translation, from Mova's open Bible corpus. The page gives the sentence's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies, parsed by Mova and checked by a teacher model — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (calamity, I), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it. The original of the verse links back to its own tree and to the Targum.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = jps:JOB:804
# text = For calamity from God was a terror to me, and by reason of His majesty I could do nothing.
1	For	for	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	calamity	calamity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
3	from	from	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	God	God	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	terror	terror	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nmod	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
12	by	by	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	reason	reason	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	majesty	majesty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
20	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	19	obj	_	_
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | calamity from God | a terror | me |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** | could | I | nothing |  |  |  | by reason of God's majesty | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Eventuality |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

## The Hebrew of this verse {#hebrew}

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כִּ֤י פַ֣חַד אֵ֭לַי אֵ֣יד אֵ֑ל וּ֝מִשְּׂאֵת֗וֹ לֹ֣א אוּכָֽל׃

[Job 31:23: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/JOB.31.23/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:JOB:804` of Mova's parse database.

**The tree and the speech act** come from Mova's cycle: the small model's draft, read by a large model as teacher, passed by Mova's gates (Elamur Cosmic License). **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the chapter read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence of the chapter.

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