What Does Job 21:19 Mean in the King James?
God layeth up his iniquity for his children: he rewardeth him, and he shall know it.
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 final “he shall know it” turns stored wrongdoing into an account the wrongdoer himself must face.
THE MEANING
Wrongdoing does not become weightless when its cost reaches a household: this verse says the account returns to the one who must know it. It holds generational harm and personal reckoning together, leaving the tension visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It unsettles the belief that a wrongdoer can pass the cost of harm to descendants and remain untouched: repayment still reaches the one who must know.
THE ROOT
יְשַׁלֵּם
yeshallēm
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
To be whole or complete; in this verb form, to make good or repay.
“rewardeth” in this verse is yeshallēm. יְשַׁלֵּם (yeshallēm) carries the sense of repaying or making good, from שׁלם (sh-l-m), the family that also gives שָׁלוֹם (shalom), wholeness. The stored wrong moves toward a completed account, and the verse says its doer comes to know it.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
The shared root links repayment with bringing something to completion.
shalom: Wholeness, well-being
שָׁלוֹם
This branch shows the root’s wider sense of a settled, complete state beneath the verb translated “rewardeth.”
וְיֵדָע
veyedaʿ
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know, recognize, or perceive.
“know” in this verse is veyedaʿ. יֵדָע (yedaʿ) can name knowing as recognition, not merely receiving information. The verse ends with the person meeting the reality of the account himself.
ALSO GROWS
yodea: One who knows
יֹדֵעַ
This form makes knowing a person’s direct state, echoing the verse’s final claim that he will know.
daʿat: Knowledge, understanding
דַּעַת
This noun belongs to the same ידע family, showing knowing as a formed understanding rather than a distant report.
THE PATTERN
Wrongdoing has a real account: its effects may reach a family, while each person remains answerable for their own deeds.
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: for thou renderest to every man according to his work.The verb translated “renderest” is תְּשַׁלֵּם (teshallēm), from the same שׁלם (sh-l-m) root as Job’s “rewardeth.” The shared root links repayment with a completed account returned according to a person’s work.
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