What Does Job 22:15 Mean in the King James?
Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden?
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 Hebrew verb for “trodden” shares its root with derek, a word for “way”: the path and the footsteps that form it belong together.
THE MEANING
The question presses on whether you are keeping an age-old route already worn by people bent toward harm. It places a path beside the repeated treading that made it familiar: a well-worn course can carry the direction of the feet that have chosen it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the assumption that age and familiarity make a path trustworthy; a course can be old because harm has been repeated along it.
THE ROOT
דָּרְכוּ
dārĕḵû
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
To tread or step.
“trodden” in this verse is dārĕḵû. The verse pairs אֹרַח (orach), “path,” with דָּרְכוּ (dārĕḵû), “they trod.” The verb’s root also forms derek, “way” or “course,” joining the idea of a route to the footsteps that wear it in.
ALSO GROWS
derek: Way, path, or course.
דֶּרֶךְ
This branch shows how the root of “tread” can also name the way made by walking.
dārak: To tread or step.
דָּרַךְ
This is the verb behind “trodden,” making the repeated footsteps explicit.
THE PATTERN
A path becomes a course through repeated steps, and its direction is revealed by where those steps lead.
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men.Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:THE THREAD
For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.Job’s verb for “trodden” comes from דרך, the same consonant-root that can form derek, “way”; Psalm 1:6 uses that path-word for two opposed courses. Together they reveal a way as a lived direction, made visible in the steps that follow it.
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