What Does Job 22:13 Mean in the King James?

And thou sayest, How doth God know? can he judge through the dark cloud?

Job 22:13 · KJV

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 dark cloud is imagined as a boundary around what God can know.

THE MEANING

This question voices the suspicion that darkness can put God’s knowledge and judgment out of reach. It turns what cannot be seen into what may not be known. The unease lies in that leap from obscurity to divine absence.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

What is hidden from human sight must also be unknowable to God.

THE ROOT

יָדַע

yādaʿ

GROWS FROM

י־ד־ע

y-d-ʿ

To know, perceive, or recognize.

“know” in this verse is yādaʿ. Yādaʿ carries the sense of knowing or perceiving by encounter, so the question reaches beyond whether God can see through a cloud. It asks whether obscurity can interrupt knowing itself.

ALSO GROWS

daʿat: Knowledge or perception.

דַּעַת

This noun carries the same root into the state of knowing, keeping the question focused on knowledge rather than sight alone.

maddāʿ: Knowledge or learning.

מַדָּע

This related noun shows the same seed extending into what is known, the very thing the question imagines darkness could conceal.

THE PATTERN

What darkness hides from human sight remains known to God.

Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

Psalm 139:12 · KJVThe night that obscures human sight does not hide anything from God.

He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.

Daniel 2:22 · KJVGod knows what is in darkness and brings hidden things into view.

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

Hebrews 4:13 · KJVNothing remains concealed from God’s sight, even when it is hidden from the reader.

THE THREAD

He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.

Daniel 2:22 · KJV

Daniel’s Aramaic verb for “know” shares the ⁨י־ד־ע⁩ (y-d-ʿ) Semitic root family with Job’s Hebrew yādaʿ. The darkness contains what is known; it does not set a boundary around perception.

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