What Does Job 18:3 Mean in the King James?
Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight?
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
“Counted” comes from a root for thinking and reckoning, exposing dehumanization as a judgment someone makes rather than a nature the judged person carries.
THE MEANING
You hear the sting of being weighed as animal-like and unclean in another person’s eyes. The verse names this reduction as a judgment made by the one looking. Its force is personal: contempt lands as a verdict about what someone is.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Someone’s contemptuous estimate can feel like the truth of your nature; this verse identifies it as that person’s judgment.
THE ROOT
נֶחְשַׁבְנוּ
neḥshavnu
GROWS FROM
חשב
ḥ-š-b
To think, reckon, or devise.
“counted” in this verse is neḥshavnu. The Hebrew keeps the act of reckoning audible: the people are being thought of and assessed as beasts. The label is a judgment formed in another’s mind, not a name inherent in the people being judged.
ALSO GROWS
maḥashavah: Thought or plan.
מַחֲשָׁבָה
This branch makes the thinking behind the judgment visible.
ḥeshbon: Account or calculation.
חֶשְׁבּוֹן
This branch echoes the act of measuring someone and assigning them a place.
נִטְמִינוּ
nitminu
GROWS FROM
טמא
ṭ-m-ʾ
To be or make unclean, contaminated.
“vile” in this verse is nitminu. The Hebrew adds the language of uncleanness to the comparison with beasts. The judgment does not merely call someone low; it treats them as though they carry defilement in the observer’s eyes.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāmēʾ: Unclean or contaminated.
טָמֵא
This adjective names the state applied to the people in the verse.
ṭumʾāh: Uncleanness or defilement.
טֻמְאָה
This noun gives the accusation a wider sense of contamination, beyond simple contempt.
THE PATTERN
When a person is reduced to an animal or denied human standing, scripture sets that reduction against the person’s likeness to God.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.THE THREAD
And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.Genesis uses the same Hebrew root חשב (ḥ-š-b, “to think or reckon”) translated “counted” here: one verse reckons trust as righteousness, while Job names a reckoning that casts people as beasts and unclean. The shared root brings the one doing the reckoning into view.
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