What Does Job 16:14 Mean in the King James?
He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant.
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 Hebrew repeats the root for breaking through as both action and wound, so the assault becomes rupture multiplying itself.
THE MEANING
When suffering comes this way, one rupture opens into another before you can recover. The force seems to rush straight at you with a warrior’s strength, and the verse gives that experience its full weight.
THE ROOT
יִפְרְצֵנִי
yipretseni
GROWS FROM
פ־ר־ץ
parats
To break through, burst out, or make a breach.
“breaketh / breach” in this verse is yipretseni. The verb “breaketh” and the noun “breach” grow from the same root, turning the action into the wound it leaves. The repeated root makes this more than a blow: it is breaking through, again and again.
ALSO GROWS
parats: To break through or burst out.
פָּרַץ
This is the verb behind “breaketh,” naming the force that breaks into the speaker’s life.
perets: A breach, rupture, or breaking forth.
פֶּרֶץ
This noun names the opening left by the action; “breach upon breach” repeats the same root’s force.
גִּבּוֹר
gibbor
GROWS FROM
ג־ב־ר
To be strong, prevail, or have might.
“giant” in this verse is gibbor. The word carries the sense of a mighty or prevailing force, not merely a large figure. The comparison makes the rush feel powerful enough to overwhelm.
ALSO GROWS
gavar: To be strong or prevail.
גָּבַר
This verb shows the force behind the image: strength pressing forward.
gevurah: Might or strength.
גְּבוּרָה
This related noun makes the attacker’s overwhelming power explicit.
THE PATTERN
Repeated affliction is pictured as an engulfing assault that arrives in waves or blows, with no interval between them.
Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.THE THREAD
And it came to pass, as he drew back his hand, that, behold, his brother came out: and she said, How hast thou broken forth? this breach be upon thee: therefore his name was called Pharez.Job’s “breaketh” and “breach” both arise from פ־ר־ץ (parats, break through). In Genesis the same root describes פָּרֶץ (Perets, breach or breaking forth) emerging into the world; here it names repeated injury, preserving the root’s raw force without deciding that the rupture is good.
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