What Does Job 18:12 Mean in the King James?
His strength shall be hungerbitten, and destruction shall be ready at his side.
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
Hunger does not merely follow weakness here; it bites into strength while destruction is already set at the body’s side.
THE MEANING
When deprivation closes in, hunger reaches into your vigor until strength itself is famished. Calamity stands beside you, making the threat bodily and immediate.
THE ROOT
רָעֵב
ra'ev
GROWS FROM
רעב
To be hungry; hunger or famine.
“hungerbitten” in this verse is ra'ev. The same root names both the hungry condition and famine, joining personal depletion to a wider scarcity. Here hunger is pictured as reaching into strength itself.
ALSO GROWS
ra'av: Hunger, famine.
רָעָב
This noun shows how the same root can name hunger as an ongoing condition, not just a passing sensation.
re'evah: Hungry; in Psalm 107:9, “the hungry soul.”
רְעֵבָה
The same root can describe a person’s hunger, opening a direct link to the verse where that hunger is met with goodness.
נָכוֹן
nakhon
GROWS FROM
כון
To be firm, established, or set in place.
“Ready” carries the sense of something established or set in place. Destruction is presented as already positioned beside him, not as a distant possibility.
ALSO GROWS
hekin: To prepare, make ready.
הֵכִין
This form shows the root’s movement from being established to being prepared for what comes.
makhon: A fixed place, foundation, or dwelling.
מָכוֹן
The root can name a settled place, sharpening the image of calamity as something set beside him.
לְצַלְעוֹ
le-tsal'o
GROWS FROM
צלע
Side or rib; in verbal use, to limp or be lame.
“at his side” in this verse is le-tsal'o. The word can name a side or rib and, in verbal use, a limp. Destruction is located at the body’s flank, where vulnerability is felt rather than kept at a distance.
ALSO GROWS
tsela: Rib, side, or flank.
צֵלָע
This noun makes the location intimate and bodily: destruction is at his side.
tsala': To limp, become lame.
צָלַע
This verbal form links the same consonants to impaired movement, echoing the verse’s image of strength under attack.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes scarcity and ruin tangible by placing them in the body and bringing danger close.
He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.THE THREAD
For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.The Hebrew form רְעֵבָה (re’evah, hungry) shares the root רעב (ra’av, hunger) with Job’s hungerbitten word. Here that same hunger is met by filling with goodness, revealing another movement available to the hungry.
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