What Does Job 15:21 Mean in the King James?
A dreadful sound is in his ears: in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him.
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 destroyer arrives “in his shalom”, within his peace, so devastation enters the very season that seems whole.
THE MEANING
Terror can sound in the ears before danger takes visible shape. Even in a season of well-being, devastation may arrive; the verse holds peace and threat together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that feeling secure means nothing can break in.
THE ROOT
בִּשְׁלוֹמוֹ
bishlomo
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole, complete, or sound; wholeness and welfare.
The word rendered “prosperity” carries the range of shalom: peace, welfare, and wholeness. The ravager comes while the person is at ease, making the arrival more unsettling than a threat that appears only in hardship.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Peace, welfare, wholeness
שָׁלוֹם
It reveals the destroyer’s setting as a state of well-being.
shalem: Whole, complete, intact
שָׁלֵם
It gives the person’s apparent peace the added sense of life seeming intact.
shillem: Repay, make good, recompense
שִׁלֵּם
This branch carries the sense of making complete or settling; here, by contrast, the destroyer arrives to devastate.
פַּחַד וָפַחַד
pachad wa-pachad
GROWS FROM
פחד
p-ḥ-d
To dread, fear, or tremble.
“dreadful sound” in this verse is pachad wa-pachad. The Hebrew repeats pachad, “dread and dread”, before placing it in the ears. The same root can name terror and the trembling it produces, joining the sound that is heard with the fear it stirs.
ALSO GROWS
pachad: Dread, terror
פַּחַד
This noun is repeated in the verse, making the heard threat feel insistent.
pāḥad: To fear, dread, tremble
פָּחַד
The verb from the same root connects the sound of terror with a person’s trembling response.
שׁוֹדֵד
shoded
GROWS FROM
שדד
sh-d-d
To devastate, despoil, or plunder.
The destroyer is a ravager or plunderer, not just an abstract misfortune. The root makes the arrival concrete: what comes into the person’s shalom can strip and ruin it.
ALSO GROWS
shod: Devastation, violence, plunder
שֹׁד
It names the ruin carried by the destroyer’s arrival.
shadad: To devastate, despoil, plunder
שָׁדַד
The verb shows the active force behind the “destroyer”: one who ravages.
THE PATTERN
Dread and ruin can break into the very moment a person believes life is secure.
For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.THE THREAD
For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.Job 3:25 uses the same root פחד (pachad, dread or fear) in “the thing which I greatly feared.” Here, dread is already audible before the destroyer arrives; together, the verses hold fear and sudden arrival in the same field.
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