What Does Job 21:23 Mean in the King James?
One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
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
This verse refuses to make dying evidence that a life has already been broken.
THE MEANING
A person can die while strength remains whole and life is quiet. Death and wholeness occupy the same sentence, so death alone does not show that this person has already been diminished or judged.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that death must come only after visible decline: a person can die with strength intact and at ease.
THE ROOT
עֶצֶם
ʿetsem
GROWS FROM
ע־צ־ם
Bone or substance at the core; in verbal use, to be strong or mighty.
The phrase translated “full strength” begins with עֶצֶם (ʿetsem, bone or substance), placing vigor in the body’s core. The same word can mean “the very” or “selfsame,” so the verse pictures someone dying with their essential substance intact.
ALSO GROWS
ʿetsem: Bone; the body’s hard core.
עֶצֶם
This is the concrete sense behind the word in “full strength,” locating vigor in the body’s substance.
ʿāṣûm: Mighty, strong, abundant.
עָצוּם
It shares the root letters, joining physical substance with strength in one word family.
ʿetsem: The thing itself; the very substance.
עֶצֶם
This sense makes “full strength” carry the added image of an intact core.
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ם
To be complete, whole, or sound; to bring to completion.
“Quiet” here is שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness), naming settled well-being, not merely silence. The same root gives שִׁלֵּם (shillem, repay or recompense), a striking neighbor in Job’s question about whether life reliably repays conduct: this man’s ease is visible, but the verse does not call it proof that justice has been settled.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole, complete, sound.
שָׁלֵם
It shows that the quiet in this verse belongs to a condition of wholeness.
shillem: To pay, repay, or recompense.
שִׁלֵּם
Its shared root echoes Job’s question about moral repayment without turning this man’s ease into a verdict.
THE PATTERN
Visible ease and adversity do not reliably sort people by moral worth.
All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.THE THREAD
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.Job’s phrase translated “full strength” begins with עֶצֶם (ʿetsem, bone or substance), the same word Adam uses for “bone of my bones.” That shared word lets the line describe someone dying with their bodily core intact, rather than after being visibly spent.
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