What Does Job 20:18 Mean in the King James?
That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down: according to his substance shall the restitution be, and he shall not rejoice therein.
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
What is gained here cannot stay swallowed: it returns from the holder’s grasp in proportion to what was gained.
THE MEANING
The verse shows labor and possession coming apart: what a person works to acquire returns out of their hands in proportion to its substance. Holding the gain does not guarantee joy in it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that working for something guarantees lasting ownership or joy in possessing it.
THE ROOT
יָשִׁיב
yashiv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
turn back, return
The verb translated “restore” means to make something return. The verse pictures possession reversing: what was gathered is sent back out of the holder’s grasp.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: return, turn back
שׁוּב
This root makes the motion inside “restore” visible: something goes back to where it came from.
teshuvah: return, turning back
תְּשׁוּבָה
This related word carries the same return-motion, illuminating restoration as a reversal of possession.
יִבְלָע
yivla
GROWS FROM
בָּלַע
swallow, engulf, devour
The root gives “swallow” the sense of taking something down and consuming it. The gain cannot be absorbed into secure possession; it returns outward instead.
ALSO GROWS
bala: swallow, devour
בָּלַע
The verb names the attempted consumption that the verse says does not happen.
beliah: swallowing, engulfment
בְּלִיעָה
This related noun extends the image from taking something in to being consumed or engulfed by it.
יָגַע
yaga
GROWS FROM
יָגַע
toil, grow weary from exertion
“laboured” in this verse is yaga. This root carries the cost of effort and weariness, not only the fact of acquiring something. The verse sets that toil beside the return, showing that effort does not ensure lasting possession or enjoyment.
ALSO GROWS
yegiah: toil, labor
יְגִיעָה
The related noun keeps the effort itself in view as the verse describes what happens to the gain.
yagea: weary, exhausted
יָגֵעַ
This related form shows the weariness contained in the labor whose result does not remain with its holder.
THE PATTERN
What is accumulated does not guarantee lasting possession or enjoyment.
There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?THE THREAD
Then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found,Job uses the same שׁוּב root in “restore” that Leviticus uses for returning what was taken. The shared word makes the reversal concrete: what is held can become something that must be handed back.
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