What Does Job 22:7 Mean in the King James?
Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry.
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 verse makes deprivation active: the thirsty and hungry are not merely overlooked when someone withholds what would sustain them.
THE MEANING
The line confronts the reader with a stark charge: the weary do not receive water, and the hungry are denied bread. It makes care tangible through what keeps the body alive, and names withholding as a form of harm.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that harm only happens through an overt attack is undone here: keeping water or bread from someone can itself do harm.
THE ROOT
מָנַעְתָּ
mānaʿta
GROWS FROM
מנע
To hold back, restrain, or prevent.
The Hebrew verb מָנַעְתָּ (mānaʿta, “you withheld”) comes from a root that also means “prevent.” The line presents hunger as more than lack: bread is kept out of reach, so control over provision can turn need into deprivation.
ALSO GROWS
mānaʿ: To withhold or prevent.
מָנַע
This is the root verb itself: the verse names an act that blocks provision from reaching someone in need.
nimnaʿ: Refrained, abstained, or was prevented.
נִמְנַע
The same root can describe someone holding back or being held back, bringing the question of restraint into the act of withholding.
THE PATTERN
A person’s response to thirst and hunger reveals whether sustaining care reaches the body.
If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink:Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:THE THREAD
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:Job names water and bread being withheld; Matthew turns the same pair into a mirror, with thirst answered by drink and hunger by food. Together, the verses make provision, or its denial, visible as a form of care.
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