What Does Job 19:5 Mean in the King James?
If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach:
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
Job names the move beneath the accusation: his reproach becomes the ground on which his accusers make themselves larger.
THE MEANING
You can hear two actions at once: people press your disgrace against you while enlarging themselves. Their forceful accusation does not, by itself, prove that their judgment is true.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that someone who makes you feel small by exposing your reproach must therefore be right about you.
THE ROOT
תַּגְדִּילוּ
tagdilu
GROWS FROM
גדל
to grow, become great, or enlarge
“magnify yourselves” in this verse is tagdilu. The verb carries the sense of making great or large: Job says his accusers are enlarging themselves against him as they press his reproach. The growth language reveals their posture, their own stature rises in the accusation they make against him.
ALSO GROWS
gadol: great, large
גָּדוֹל
This adjective shares the root’s language of size and greatness, echoing the accusers’ self-enlargement.
migdal: tower
מִגְדָּל
A tower is something raised up high; the shared root gives a concrete image of becoming great or elevated.
gedullah: greatness, majesty
גְּדֻלָּה
This noun names the greatness that the accusers claim for themselves as they press Job’s reproach.
THE PATTERN
People can use another person’s hurt or disgrace as a platform to magnify themselves.
Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine hurt: let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me.For I said, Hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me: when my foot slippeth, they magnify themselves against me.The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.THE THREAD
For I said, Hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me: when my foot slippeth, they magnify themselves against me.The Hebrew repeats גדל (gadal, “grow” or “enlarge”) in “they magnify themselves against me.” The parallel makes the mechanism plain: another person’s exposed weakness becomes an occasion for the accusers’ self-enlargement.
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