What Does Job 12:4 Mean in the King James?
I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn.
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 same Hebrew laughter word frames the verse twice, holding God’s answer and the just man’s ridicule together without letting the scorn cancel his wholeness.
THE MEANING
You can call upon God and receive an answer while the neighbor beside you laughs at you. The verse holds both facts together: another person’s scorn does not erase God’s answer or make the just, whole person crooked.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Mockery does not prove that God has failed to answer you or that your integrity is false.
THE ROOT
שְׂחֹק
śəḥōq
GROWS FROM
שׂחק
To laugh, play, or mock.
“mocked / laughed to scorn” in this verse is śəḥōq. The same root appears at both ends of the verse, so laughter becomes its frame: the person who calls on God and receives an answer is still made an object of scorn. English renders the repeated word differently, but Hebrew keeps the ridicule audible as one recurring action.
ALSO GROWS
śāḥaq: To laugh, play, or mock.
שָׂחַק
This verb names the action behind the laughter and ridicule that frame the verse.
śəḥōq: Laughter or derision.
שְׂחוֹק
This noun appears at the verse’s opening and near its close, surrounding both the answered prayer and the description of the just man.
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צדק
To be right or just; to stand in alignment.
“just” in this verse is tsaddiq. The man’s justice carries the language of alignment, not merely a public reputation. The verse places that alignment beside laughter, so being ridiculed does not itself make him crooked.
ALSO GROWS
ṣedeq: Justice or what is right.
צֶדֶק
This noun shows the alignment contained in the verse’s description of the man as just.
ṣədāqāh: Righteousness or justice expressed in action.
צְדָקָה
This branch carries the same root into lived justice, widening what the word “just” can hold.
תָּמִים
tamim
GROWS FROM
תמם
To be complete or whole.
The word translated “upright” carries the sense of wholeness or completeness. Joined to “just,” it portrays a person whose integrity remains intact even while others turn him into a joke.
ALSO GROWS
tom: Integrity or completeness.
תֹּם
This noun makes the wholeness in “upright” visible as integrity, the very quality ridicule cannot settle.
tāmam: To be complete or come to completion.
תָּמַם
The verb traces the same root toward being whole, illuminating the force of “upright man” in the verse.
THE PATTERN
A person can receive God’s answer and still be treated as ridiculous by those nearby; public scorn does not settle that person’s standing.
All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.THE THREAD
But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.Job 30:1 uses the same שחק (śāḥaq), the root of laughing and mockery. Its recurrence lets Job 12:4’s laughter open into a repeated pressure in Job’s words: he is made an object of derision while claiming integrity.
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