What Does Job 16:20 Mean in the King James?
My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto 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
Even as friends scorn, the eye becomes a spring whose tears run straight toward God.
THE MEANING
The voices nearest you can meet your pain with contempt, while your grief still flows directly toward God. The scorn does not make the tears smaller or silence their address.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that being mocked by those close to you makes your grief unfit to bring before God is undone here.
THE ROOT
דָּמְעָה
damʿah
GROWS FROM
דמע
d-m-ʿ
To weep or shed tears.
“poureth” in this verse is damʿah. The verb makes the eye an active source of weeping, not merely a witness to pain. The same root names tears elsewhere, keeping the act of weeping and what flows from it joined beneath the English words.
ALSO GROWS
dāmaʿ: To weep or shed tears.
דָּמַע
This verbal branch shares the same seed as the tears flowing from the eye in Job’s line.
dimʿah: A tear; tears.
דִּמְעָה
This noun names what the eye releases, carrying the root’s act of weeping into a tangible image.
עֵינִי
ʿeini
GROWS FROM
עין
ʿ-y-n
Eye; the same word-family also names a spring or source.
Hebrew עַיִן can mean both an eye and a spring. Beside the verb of weeping, that overlap lets the eye be seen as an opening from which tears flow toward God.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: Eye; also a spring or source.
עַיִן
The verse’s eye carries both the sense of seeing and the image of a water source.
maʿyan: Spring or fountain.
מַעְיָן
This related word extends the eye’s source-image: the tears are water flowing from an opening.
THE PATTERN
Human contempt does not prevent grief from reaching God as tears, prayer, or care.
Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the LORD hath heard the voice of my weeping.The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.THE THREAD
Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?Job’s דִּמְעָה and the psalm’s word for tears come from the same root for weeping. Here the eye’s tears flow toward God; there they are pictured as kept in God’s bottle and book.
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