What Does Job 14:2 Mean in the King James?
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
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 makes human brevity a two-part motion: a flower is cut down, and a shadow flees because it cannot stand.
THE MEANING
Your life comes into view like a flower, and its beauty does not guarantee duration: it is cut down, then passes like a shadow that will not stand. The verse speaks plainly about human vulnerability and lets that brevity remain visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that a visible, flourishing life will remain in place: the flower is already paired with being cut down.
THE ROOT
צֵל
tsel
GROWS FROM
צלל
ṣ-l-l
to shade or grow dark
The shadow is a shade that quickly passes from view. A related Hebrew expression carries the shadow into deepest darkness, extending the image from a fleeting outline to obscurity.
ALSO GROWS
tsel: shadow, shade
צֵל
This is the word Job uses for the image that flees and cannot stand.
tsalmaveth: deepest darkness
צַלְמָוֶת
This related expression carries the shadow image into deepest darkness, showing how completely a passing outline can disappear from sight.
יַעֲמֹד
yaʿamod
GROWS FROM
עמד
ʿ-m-d
to stand, remain in place, endure
“continueth not” in this verse is yaʿamod. The Hebrew says the shadow does not stand. The verse measures duration as holding a place: the fleeing shadow cannot remain upright or stay put.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāmad: to stand, remain
עָמַד
This is the root verb behind the line: the shadow cannot do what the verb names.
ʿammūd: pillar, column
עַמּוּד
A pillar is something that stands; the related noun makes the verse’s image of endurance tangible.
צִיץ
tsits
GROWS FROM
צוץ
ṣ-w-ṣ
to blossom, put forth
The flower belongs to a word family for things that project visibly into view. That sense of emergence sharpens the verse’s movement: what blooms into sight can still be cut down.
ALSO GROWS
tsits: flower, blossom
צִיץ
This is the visible bloom used to picture a human life.
tsitsit: fringe, tassel
צִיצִת
The related word names a projecting tuft, keeping the family’s sense of something put forth and visible.
THE PATTERN
Human life appears vividly but does not hold its form; Scripture pictures its brevity as grass and flowers that quickly fade.
As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.THE THREAD
Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.Job’s fleeing shadow reappears in Psalm 144 as the image of passing days. Both use צֵל (tsel), meaning shadow, so the same Hebrew word links human brevity to a shade that moves out of sight.
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