What Does Job 19:27 Mean in the King James?
Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.
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 hope here is that no one else sees God for you: your own eyes do.
THE MEANING
You hold the expectation of seeing God for yourself, with your own eyes; another person’s account cannot stand in for that encounter. Even as your innermost parts are consumed, the seeing remains personal and direct.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that inward collapse means your encounter with God must be borrowed from someone else’s testimony.
THE ROOT
אֶחֱזֶה
ʾeḥĕzeh
GROWS FROM
חזה
ḥ-z-h: to see, gaze, behold.
Here, seeing is not someone else’s report: the speaker says he will see for himself, then repeats the claim with his own eyes and rejects a stranger as substitute witness. The root’s branches name both the one who sees and the vision seen, keeping direct beholding and vision in the same word family.
ALSO GROWS
ḥozeh: seer; one who beholds
חֹזֶה
This branch names the one who sees, echoing the verse’s insistence that the encounter belongs to the speaker himself.
maḥazeh: vision; what is seen
מַחֲזֶה
This branch carries seeing into the vision itself, linking personal beholding with what becomes visible.
עֵינַי
ʿênay
GROWS FROM
עין
ʿ-y-n: eye; the same noun also names a spring or fountain.
The word for eye also names a spring or fountain, a source from which something emerges. In “mine eyes shall behold,” this shared word connects personal sight with a source of seeing, rather than testimony received from elsewhere.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: eye; also a spring or fountain
עַיִן
The word itself holds both meanings, so the eyes in this verse carry the image of a source as well as the capacity to see.
maʿyan: spring; fountain
מַעְיָן
This word shares the consonants ע־י־ן and makes the source meaning explicit, extending the verse’s image of sight as personal and direct.
THE PATTERN
The hope of seeing God reaches beyond heard testimony toward direct encounter.
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.THE THREAD
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.Job’s אֶחֱזֶה (ʾeḥĕzeh, “I shall see/behold”) and the Psalm’s same verb come from חזה (ḥ-z-h, “to gaze, behold”). Job’s insistence that he sees for himself meets the Psalmist’s longing to behold God’s face: the shared verb makes direct sight the point.
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