What Does Job 14:19 Mean in the King James?
The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man.
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 waters wear down stone while the Hebrew word for hope can also mean a cord: even the line stretched toward a future can be broken.
THE MEANING
You live in a world where persistent water wears stone and what grows from the soil can be washed away. The verse places human hope in that same chain of loss: God washes away what springs from the earth and destroys a person’s expectation. The Hebrew word for hope can also name a cord, so the loss reaches the line held toward a future.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that hope is sheltered from the same forces that wear down the rest of life.
THE ROOT
תִּקְוַת
tiqvat
GROWS FROM
קוה
To wait for or expect; related forms also carry the senses of cord or line and gathering.
תִּקְוָה (tiqvah) can mean both hope and a cord, while מִקְוֶה (miqveh) names a gathering or pool of water. The shared consonants קוה let the opening waters echo inside the verse’s word for hope: expectation is a line held toward what comes next, and that line can be lost.
ALSO GROWS
tiqvah: Hope, expectation; also a cord or line.
תִּקְוָה
The hope destroyed in the verse can be heard as a cord of expectation stretched toward a future.
miqveh: A gathering or collection, including a pool of water.
מִקְוֶה
Its shared consonants echo the waters that begin the verse, joining the image of water with the word for hope.
תְּאַבֵּד
te'abbed
GROWS FROM
אבד
To perish or be lost; in this form, to cause something to perish.
“destroyest” in this verse is te'abbed. The root holds perishing and being lost together, so this is not only damage to hope: the hope itself is made to perish. The verse’s final loss is total, after water has worn stone and washed away growth.
ALSO GROWS
oved: Perishing; one who is lost or perishing.
אֹבֵד
It shows the root describing a state of loss, alongside the verse’s form that causes loss.
avaddon: Destruction or a place of destruction.
אֲבַדּוֹן
This noun gives the root’s movement toward perishing a concrete name.
שָׁחֲקוּ
shachaqu
GROWS FROM
שחק
To rub, grind down, or wear away.
“wear” in this verse is shachaqu. The word describes gradual abrasion: water acts through continual contact until stone yields. That slow wearing shapes the verse’s sequence of losses, from stone and soil-grown things to human hope.
ALSO GROWS
shechiqah: Wearing, grinding, or abrasion.
שְׁחִיקָה
It names the gradual process by which the waters reduce the stones.
shachuq: Worn down or ground.
שָׁחוּק
It describes the condition left by the persistent force pictured in the verse.
THE PATTERN
What appears solid or flourishing remains exposed to forces that make it wither, wear out, and perish.
They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed:The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;THE THREAD
So are the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite’s hope shall perish:This verse uses the same word for hope, תִּקְוָה (tiqvah), and the same root אבד (avad, perish or be lost) as Job 14:19. There, hope perishes; here, God is named as the one who destroys it, while water, stone, and washed earth make the loss visible.
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