What Does Job 15:12 Mean in the King James?
Why doth thine heart carry thee away? and what do thy eyes wink at,
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 the heart the one doing the taking: what you carry inside can carry you.
THE MEANING
Your heart is not pictured as a passive passenger; it takes hold of something and can carry you along. Your eyes, with their flash or wink, show where your attention is fixed. The question meets you now: what is your inward life taking up, and what does your gaze keep turning toward?
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that only outside forces steer you; here, the heart itself can take hold of a direction and pull you with it.
THE ROOT
יִּקָּחֲךָ
yiqqāḥăkā
GROWS FROM
לקח
L-Q-Ḥ
To take or receive.
Inside “carry thee away” is the Hebrew verb for taking, with the heart as its subject. The verse pictures the heart as an active force: what it takes hold of can carry you along.
ALSO GROWS
lāqaḥ: To take, take away, or receive.
לָקַח
This is the verb in the verse; the heart is the one doing the taking.
leqaḥ: Instruction or teaching; what is received.
לֶקַח
The same root can name what is taken in as instruction, linking what the heart receives with the direction it follows.
לִבֶּךָ
libbekha
GROWS FROM
לבב
L-B-B
The heart or inner self: the center of thought, desire, and intent.
This heart-word reaches beyond emotion to the inward self that thinks, desires, and intends. The question is about what is taking hold of that inner direction.
ALSO GROWS
lev: Heart; inner mind or self.
לֵב
This shorter form shows that “heart” includes inward thought and intention, not feeling alone.
levav: Heart; inner self.
לֵבָב
This form makes the heart’s whole inward life visible, the very place the verse pictures being taken hold of.
THE PATTERN
The heart’s attachments and the eyes’ focus disclose the direction drawing a person.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.THE THREAD
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.Both verses use the Hebrew word לב, “heart,” for the inward source of a person’s direction. Job’s question pictures the heart taking you along; Proverbs names it as the source from which life’s paths flow.
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