What Does Job 19:16 Mean in the King James?
I called my servant, and he gave me no answer; I intreated him with my mouth.
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 verse separates calling from receiving an answer: Job’s mouth keeps reaching outward, but the response remains someone else’s to give.
THE MEANING
This verse names the ache of calling someone and receiving no answer. You can keep speaking, even turn a direct call into a plea for favor, while the silence remains. The verse lets both the need and the silence stand without pretending one has resolved the other.
THE ROOT
יַעֲנֵנִי
yaʿanēnî
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿ-n-h
Answer, respond.
Hebrew keeps the relational action explicit: he does not answer me. Job 30:20 uses this same verb in a cry to God, an echo the KJV wording “thou dost not hear me” obscures.
ALSO GROWS
yaʿanēnî: He answers me.
יַעֲנֵנִי
This is the form used in the verse, so the silence is expressed as the absence of a response.
maʿăneh: Answer, response.
מַעֲנֶה
The same root names both the act of answering and the answer itself.
קָרָאתִי
qārāʾtî
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
Call, summon, proclaim; also read aloud.
“called” in this verse is qārāʾtî. The call is active and direct: Job does what speech can do, but the root does not promise that a response will follow. The same Hebrew seed also appears in words for reading and public assembly.
ALSO GROWS
qerîʾāh: Calling; reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
It shows that the root carries voice into both a call and a spoken reading.
miqrāʾ: Reading; convocation or assembly.
מִקְרָא
A call can gather people together, but here Job’s call does not gather a reply.
אֶתְחַנֶּן
ʾetḥannēn
GROWS FROM
חנן
ḥ-n-n
Show favor, be gracious.
“intreated” in this verse is ʾetḥannēn. The plea grows from a root about favor: Job’s speech has shifted from calling for a response to asking for gracious regard. The verse lets that appeal remain an appeal, without claiming it has changed the silence.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēn: Favor.
חֵן
This is the favor at the heart of the plea.
ḥannūn: Gracious, favor-giving.
חַנּוּן
It names the quality Job seeks from the one he entreats.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives direct speech to the experience of calling and not receiving an answer.
O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?THE THREAD
I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me not.The same Hebrew root ענה (ʿanah, “answer”) appears in both verses; in Job 30:20, the KJV renders it “hear me.” That shared root links the servant’s silence with Job’s own unanswered cry to God.
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