What Does Job 15:20 Mean in the King James?
The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor.
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
Power over others does not become power over one’s own life: the oppressor’s days writhe, and their number remains hidden from him.
THE MEANING
The oppressor spends all his days in anguish, while his own lifespan remains concealed from him. Power over others does not grant him command over the length or end of his life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that domination can make a life secure or its end predictable.
THE ROOT
מִתְחוֹלֵל
mithcholel
GROWS FROM
חוּל
ḥûl
To whirl or writhe; the same root also carries the sense of laboring to bring forth.
The word translated “travaileth” describes a life caught in continual turning and anguish. The same root reaches into dance and birth pangs, linking the oppressor’s daily unrest to bodily movement that cannot settle.
ALSO GROWS
machol: A dance.
מָחוֹל
The dance branch shares the root’s turning movement, showing how the same motion can be joyful or anguished.
cholelekha: One who gives birth or brings forth.
חוֹלְלֶךָ
This branch carries the root into labor and birth, sharpening the sense of a life continually writhing under strain.
נִצְפְּנוּ
nits’penu
GROWS FROM
צָפַן
tsaphan
To conceal or store away.
The years are “hidden” by a root that can also mean to store something away. The word leaves the oppressor without access to the count of his own days, as though that knowledge is held beyond his reach.
ALSO GROWS
yitspon: He stores or lays something up.
יִצְפֹּן
This form shows that what is hidden can also be kept in reserve, giving the verse’s concealed years a sense of something held beyond view.
tsafun: Concealed or kept out of sight.
צָפוּן
This related form makes clear that the years are not merely unknown in the moment; they remain beyond the oppressor’s sight.
THE PATTERN
No human power secures life or gives anyone full knowledge of its span.
There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?THE THREAD
He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.Job’s word for “hidden” comes from צָפַן (tsaphan, to conceal or store away), the same root behind “layeth up” in Proverbs. The shared root connects what remains beyond the oppressor’s sight with what is stored up as wisdom for the upright.
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