What Does Job 12:23 Mean in the King James?
He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again.
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
A nation’s growth is no guarantee of security: the root behind “destroyeth” also means to perish or be lost.
THE MEANING
You see nations increase and perish; the verse places both movements under one hand. Expansion does not make a people untouchable, and decline is not outside that hand.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that growth makes a people secure is undone here: increase can coexist with the power to perish.
THE ROOT
וַיְאַבְּדֵם
wayʾabbedēm
GROWS FROM
אבד
To perish or be lost; in this causative form, to bring to perishing.
English “destroyeth” stresses an act done to the nations; אבד also names perishing and being lost. The root holds disappearance inside the reversal: the people who expand can be made to lose their place altogether.
ALSO GROWS
ʾābad: The basic verb for perishing or being lost.
אָבַד
The nation is brought into the root’s state of loss, a change more final than a fall in rank.
hāʾōvədîm: A form for people who are perishing or lost, used in Isaiah 27:13.
הָאֹבְדִים
The same seed can describe the people themselves as those perishing, making the loss personal, not merely a change in territorial size.
ʾăbaddōn: A noun naming destruction or ruin.
אֲבַדּוֹן
This branch names the outcome toward which Job’s causative verb drives the nations.
THE PATTERN
The rise and fall of public power remain reversible under God’s hand.
The LORD maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up.He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:THE THREAD
He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.The next verse carries the reversal from a nation’s scale to its leaders’ inner direction: their heart is taken, and they wander where there is no way. The loss reaches beyond size; a people can also lose its way.
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