What Does Job 20:7 Mean in the King James?
Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he?
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
Here, a person’s end is pictured as discarded refuse, and even those who saw him are left unable to say where he is.
THE MEANING
The verse holds you before a brutal image: he perishes like his own dung, utterly discarded. Those who have seen him are left with one question, “Where is he?”, as presence gives way to absence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that being seen guarantees a lasting presence; here, even the witnesses cannot locate him.
THE ROOT
יֹאבֵד
yōʾvēd
GROWS FROM
אבד
Perish, be lost, disappear
“perish” in this verse is yōʾvēd. The verb יֹאבֵד comes from אבד, a root whose reach includes both perishing and being lost. Its branches connect the one who is perishing with destruction itself, giving the verse’s disappearance a force beyond mere passing: what is lost leaves no trace for the witnesses to find.
ALSO GROWS
ʾōvēd: A perishing one; one ready to be lost.
אֹבֵד
This form can describe a person in the state of perishing, echoing Job’s picture of a person vanishing.
ʾăvaddōn: Destruction or ruin.
אֲבַדּוֹן
This related noun names destruction itself, showing that the root can describe both being lost and the ruin that marks that loss.
THE PATTERN
A life that seems present and substantial can vanish so completely that its former place holds no trace.
For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.THE THREAD
Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever.Psalm 9:5 uses the same root אבד (ʾābad, perish or be lost) in “destroyed.” It extends Job’s disappearance to the loss of a name, so “Where is he?” opens onto the erasure of the trace he left.
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