What Does Job 15:33 Mean in the King James?
He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive.
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 vineyard image is not quiet shedding: the Hebrew verb carries violence, so the unripe fruit is lost by force before harvest.
THE MEANING
Here, you meet growth before fulfillment: the grape is still unripe and the olive still in blossom, yet both are shaken loose or thrown down. The verse names a stark present reality: what is still forming is not thereby secure, and fruit can be lost before it ripens.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the assumption that visible growth guarantees a harvest: fruit and blossom can be lost while still forming.
THE ROOT
יַחְמֹס
yaḥmōs
GROWS FROM
חמס
ḥ-m-s
To act violently, do wrong, or rob.
“shake off” in this verse is yaḥmōs. The verb חָמַס (ḥāmas, act violently) places force inside the image. The grape is still unripe, and its loss arrives as a violent stripping; the word holds agricultural loss and violence together.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāmās: Violence, wrong
חָמָס
This noun from the same root makes the force within the image audible: the loss has the shade of violence.
ḥāmas: To act violently, do wrong
חָמַס
The verb gives the shaking an active force, as the unripe grape is stripped from the vine.
יַשְׁלֵךְ
yashlikh
GROWS FROM
שלך
sh-l-k
To throw or cast.
“cast off” in this verse is yashlikh. The root שָׁלַךְ (shalakh, throw or cast) gives this image a physical action: the olive’s blossom is thrown down before it becomes fruit. The same verb can cast a burden toward the LORD or cast a person away; its object and destination shape the image.
ALSO GROWS
hashlekh: Cast, throw
הַשְׁלֵךְ
In Psalm 55:22 the speaker casts a burden upon the LORD, showing the same physical action directed toward sustaining care.
tashlikheni: Cast me away
תַּשְׁלִיכֵנִי
In Psalm 71:9 the same root names being cast away, echoing the rejection of the olive blossom here.
THE PATTERN
Visible growth can be cut short before it reaches fruit.
For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches.And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.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
Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.Job’s verb for casting off the olive blossom is שָׁלַךְ (shalakh, throw or cast), the same root in Psalm 55:22’s “Cast thy burden.” The root action is the same, while its object changes the image: here the blossom is discarded before fruit; there a burden is placed into sustaining care.
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