What Does Job 1:10 Mean in the King James?
Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
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 Adversary presents Job’s protection and prosperity as the reason for his trust, turning a catalogue of blessings into an accusation about motive.
THE MEANING
The verse places Job inside a widening circle of protection: himself, his house, and everything he owns; then it names blessing over his work and increase across the land. The Adversary offers these favorable conditions as an explanation for devotion, leaving the reader with the question of what trust rests on when those conditions change.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Visible prosperity alone cannot prove that someone’s devotion is bought; the verse presents that inference as a charge to be tested, not a settled truth.
THE ROOT
פָּרַץ
parats
GROWS FROM
פרץ
To break through or spread beyond a boundary.
The word translated “is increased” carries the motion of breaking outward. The verse’s abundance is not only a larger amount; it is a spread across the land.
ALSO GROWS
parats: To break through or spread out.
פָּרַץ
This is the verb used for Job’s possessions increasing, giving the abundance a sense of outward movement.
perets: A breach or break in a boundary.
פֶּרֶץ
This related noun makes the root’s boundary-crossing sense visible beneath the English word “increase.”
שַׂכְתָּ
sakhta
GROWS FROM
שׂוך
To hedge or fence around.
“made an hedge” in this verse is sakhta. The verse repeats “about” around Job, his house, and all that he owns, making protection a complete enclosure. English can leave “hedge” sounding like a single barrier; the Hebrew verb emphasizes the act of surrounding.
ALSO GROWS
suk: To hedge or fence about.
שׂוּךְ
This is the root verb behind the enclosure named in the verse.
mesukhah: A hedge or fenced boundary.
מְשׂוּכָה
This related noun gives the enclosing image a concrete form: a boundary around what is held within.
בֵּרַכְתָּ
berakhta
GROWS FROM
ברך
To bless; the root family also includes the knee, carrying the image of bending.
“blessed” in this verse is berakhta. The blessing falls specifically on the work of Job’s hands, joining favor to what is done. The root’s connection with the knee adds an embodied image of bending without replacing the word’s sense of blessing.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: Knee.
בֶּרֶךְ
This related word preserves the root’s image of bending within the verse’s language of blessing.
berakhah: Blessing.
בְּרָכָה
The noun shares the root of the verb used for the work of Job’s hands.
THE PATTERN
Protection and provision can surround a life and its work, yet their presence alone does not settle what trust rests on.
For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:THE THREAD
And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.Job’s “is increased” translates פָּרַץ (parats), a verb carrying the motion of breaking through or spreading. Genesis 28:14 uses the same root for spreading in every direction, so Job’s abundance appears as movement outward across a boundary, not merely a static pile.
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