What Does Job 1:21 Mean in the King James?
And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
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 names the LORD as both giver and taker, then blesses the LORD’s name without calling the loss good.
THE MEANING
Your life begins and ends without possessions; what is given can be taken away, and the verse names both movements plainly. Blessing the LORD’s name stands beside the loss without erasing it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what you receive must remain yours, or that its loss means the gift was never real.
THE ROOT
נָתַן
natan
GROWS FROM
נתן
Give, put, set, place.
“gave” in this verse is natan. Natan carries the sense of giving or setting something in place. The verse pairs the LORD’s giving with the LORD’s taking, holding gift and loss under one source without making them feel the same.
ALSO GROWS
mattānāh: Gift
מַתָּנָה
A gift is what has been given; the word keeps the verse’s receiving distinct from permanent possession.
mattān: Gift, present
מַתָּן
This branch makes the act of giving tangible: what comes into your hands is received.
אָשׁוּב
ashuv
GROWS FROM
שוב
Turn back, return.
The word translated “return” comes from shuv, which holds returning together with turning back. The verse frames life as a movement from naked arrival to naked return, with possessions belonging only to the span between.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: Turn back, return
שׁוּב
This is the movement named in the verse: the return is a turning back, not an accumulation carried onward.
meshuvah: Turning away, apostasy
מְשׁוּבָה
This branch shows how the same root can name a turn away; here, by contrast, the movement is a return to where life began.
מְבֹרָךְ
mevorakh
GROWS FROM
ברך
Bless; bend the knee.
“blessed” in this verse is mevorakh. The verse’s final word is a form of barak, a root associated with blessing and bending the knee. The object is the LORD’s שֵׁם (shem, name as nature): the blessing stands beside the taking without making the loss itself good.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: Knee
בֶּרֶךְ
The knee gives the root’s physical image of bending, a posture that helps illuminate blessing as an act of acknowledgment.
berakhah: Blessing
בְּרָכָה
This noun from the same root names the blessing spoken over the LORD’s name.
THE PATTERN
The life that comes without possessions returns without possessions, however much it receives in between.
As he came forth of his mother’s womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.THE THREAD
But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.This saying makes explicit the painful claim compressed into the first: good and evil both come from God’s hand. It keeps “blessed be the name” from being mistaken for a claim that the loss is harmless.
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