What Does Job 20:13 Mean in the King James?
Though he spare it, and forsake it not; but keep it still within his 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 wickedness is not merely tasted: it is spared from release and kept inside as something worth protecting.
THE MEANING
A person can spare what harms him, decline to leave it, and keep it close enough to taste. The verse exposes how pleasure can become protection: what remains sweet at the mouth is being sheltered within.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that what tastes sweet is harmless to keep close.
THE ROOT
יַחְמֹל
yachmol
GROWS FROM
חמל
chamal
to spare, have compassion, treat with pity
“spare” in this verse is yachmol. The sentence gives its protection to wickedness itself: it is treated as something worthy of pity and preservation. The word’s tenderness sharpens the image of appetite sheltering what should be released.
ALSO GROWS
chamal: to spare or show compassion
חָמַל
This verb names the protective action directed toward the wickedness in the verse.
chemlah: compassion, pity
חֶמְלָה
The related noun makes the tenderness in sparing explicit, exposing how the object is treated as precious.
יַעַזְבֶנָּה
ya'azvenah
GROWS FROM
עזב
azav
to leave, abandon, leave behind
“forsake” in this verse is ya'azvenah. The line refuses separation: he does not leave the thing behind. Together with sparing it, this makes the attachment more than a passing taste; it is something he keeps close.
ALSO GROWS
ozev: one who leaves or abandons
עֹזֵב
This form names the act the verse refuses: the thing is not left behind.
azuvah: forsaken, abandoned
עֲזוּבָה
This related form names the state that would follow if the attachment were broken.
וְיִמְנָעֶנָּה
veyimna'enna
GROWS FROM
מנע
mana
to withhold, restrain, hold back
“keep” in this verse is veyimna'enna. The verb carries the sense of withholding: the thing is kept from leaving the mouth. Appetite becomes a grip, not a passing taste; the object is held near.
ALSO GROWS
nimna: is restrained, refrains, abstains
נִמְנַע
This related form shows the root’s language of holding back and restraint.
meni'ah: restraint, prevention
מְנִיעָה
The noun makes the restraining force explicit, matching the verse’s image of something withheld within the mouth.
THE PATTERN
What is kept sweet in the mouth can turn into harm within.
Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.THE THREAD
Yet his meat in his bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps within him.The next line reveals what is concealed inside this one: the kept sweetness becomes gall within him. The movement from mouth to inner body shows that what is spared at the surface still turns bitter within.
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