What Does Job 18:17 Mean in the King James?
His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street.
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
When remembrance disappears, the name, the nature made publicly known, also loses its place in the shared world.
THE MEANING
The verse places total erasure before the reader: remembrance vanishes from the earth, and the name has no place in public life. A human name and the memory attached to it are not guaranteed permanence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a public name guarantees lasting presence: remembrance itself can vanish from the earth.
THE ROOT
זִכְרוֹ
zikhrô
GROWS FROM
זכר
z-k-r
To remember, call to mind, or mention.
English remembrance can sound like private thought, but זכר also carries the sense of bringing something to mind or mention. The verse’s pairing of vanished remembrance with no name in the street reaches from memory into shared speech.
ALSO GROWS
zakhar: To remember, recall, or mention.
זָכַר
The verb shows remembrance as an active bringing to mind or speech, both of which disappear in the verse.
zeker: Remembrance, memorial, or mention.
זֵכֶר
This related noun shows that what vanishes is also the trace by which someone is recalled or spoken of.
zikaron: Memorial or remembrance.
זִכָּרוֹן
This form makes visible the lasting reminder that the verse says is lost.
אָבַד
avad
GROWS FROM
אבד
ʾ-b-d
To perish or be lost.
“perish” in this verse is avad. The root can describe both perishing and being lost; here remembrance itself is what goes missing. The next clause extends that loss to the name’s place in the public world.
ALSO GROWS
avedah: A lost thing.
אֲבֵדָה
This related form sharpens the image of remembrance as something that can go missing.
avaddon: Destruction or ruin.
אֲבַדּוֹן
This branch shows the root’s harsher reach: loss can become complete destruction.
THE PATTERN
A person’s earthly remembrance and public name can disappear, while scripture also depicts a name as something God can preserve.
The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.THE THREAD
O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them.“Perished” here comes from the same root, אבד, as Job’s “perish.” Psalm 9 applies that loss to a memorial too: the trace that keeps someone in memory can itself disappear.
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