What Does Job 15:4 Mean in the King James?
Yea, thou castest off fear, and restrainest prayer before God.
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 prayer being restrained is also musing and discourse, so the verse names the shrinking of an entire inner conversation before God.
THE MEANING
The verse names a present possibility: awe of God is set aside, and the inward speech and reflection before God are made smaller. What is restrained is more than a spoken request; it includes the continuing movement of thought and words in God’s presence. The two clauses hold those losses together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that prayer is only a spoken petition: its word includes musing and discourse, so restraining prayer also narrows the inner conversation before God.
THE ROOT
שִׂיחָה
sichah
GROWS FROM
שיח
s-y-ḥ
to muse, speak, or discourse
The word rendered “prayer” carries the sense of musing and discourse, joining inward reflection with spoken address. The verse describes diminishing that whole movement of thought and speech before God, not merely reducing formal requests.
ALSO GROWS
asichah: I meditate or speak
אָשִׂיחָה
Psalm 119:15 uses this form for meditation, showing inward attention as one branch of this discourse.
sicho: his musing or complaint
שִׂיחוֹ
Psalm 102:1 uses this word for a sufferer’s poured-out complaint, connecting musing with speech that can carry distress.
תִּגְרַע
tigraʿ
GROWS FROM
גרע
g-r-ʿ
to diminish, reduce, or withdraw
The root names a reduction or taking away, giving “restrainest” the force of making something less. Here what is diminished is prayer as inner discourse before God.
ALSO GROWS
niggaraʿ: be diminished or held back
נִגָּרַע
In Numbers 9:7, the speakers ask why they are held back from bringing an offering; the same root makes restraint a concrete subtraction.
tigreʿu: you diminish or subtract
תִּגְרְעוּ
Deuteronomy 4:2 uses this form for diminishing instruction, showing the root’s force as taking something away.
יִרְאָה
yirʾah
GROWS FROM
ירא
y-r-ʾ
to fear or stand in awe
“fear” in this verse is yirʾah. When God is the one feared, this word carries awe: a posture of recognition before God. Paired with the act of setting it aside, the verse describes awe being discarded alongside the diminishing of prayer.
ALSO GROWS
yareʾ: to fear or stand in awe
יָרֵא
This form shows the root as a lived response; with God as its object, the sense is awe rather than fear of danger.
moraʾ: awe or dread
מוֹרָא
This noun carries the same root’s sense of awe, clarifying the relational posture named in “fear of God.”
THE PATTERN
Prayer before God includes sustained inward discourse, not only occasional spoken petitions.
I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways.And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;Pray without ceasing.THE THREAD
Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.Job’s “prayer” and the psalmist’s “will I pray” share שיח (s-y-ḥ), the root of musing and discourse. Job names that discourse as diminished; here it pours through the day and is heard, revealing what the restrained word contains.
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