What Does Job 19:28 Mean in the King James?
But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in 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
Because the Hebrew word for “matter” also means “word,” the verse locates the root beneath the accusation in the language that carries it.
THE MEANING
The sentence lays out a pursuer’s logic: the root of the matter is said to be in the person being pursued. An unseen explanation becomes settled blame, giving pursuit a reason. The verse speaks now wherever an accusation claims to know what is rooted within someone.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; a word, utterance, matter, or thing.
The KJV’s “matter” translates davar, which also means “word” or “utterance.” That overlap lets the phrase carry an echo of both the root of the situation and the root of the words used to explain it.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, saying, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The same word can name the issue and the speech about it, tying the charge to the matter whose root is being located.
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
This spoken form shares the root, revealing the connection between a matter and the words that name it.
שֹׁרֶשׁ
shoresh
GROWS FROM
שרש
Root: the hidden source from which a plant grows.
The Hebrew keeps the image of a living root beneath what appears above ground. The same root can describe taking root or being rooted out, so what grounds something can also be exposed to loss.
ALSO GROWS
shoresh: Root, the source beneath a plant.
שֹׁרֶשׁ
This is the word Job uses to locate the source of the matter within himself.
yeshorashu: Be rooted out.
יְשֹׁרָשׁוּ
Job 31:8 uses the same root for what can be torn up, showing the root as both a hidden source and something vulnerable to removal.
THE PATTERN
What is hidden in the root shapes what can endure above ground.
Then let me sow, and let another eat; yea, let my offspring be rooted out.For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, immediately they are offended.THE THREAD
Then let me sow, and let another eat; yea, let my offspring be rooted out.Job 19:28 names the root beneath the matter; Job 31:8 uses that same Hebrew root for being rooted out. The shared word holds both what gives rise to a situation and what can be torn from its ground.
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