What Does Job 22:9 Mean in the King James?
Thou hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.
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
A language of justice can name real harm while still being used to falsely accuse the person it targets.
THE MEANING
The verse names two kinds of harm: dismissing a widow with nothing and crushing an orphan’s strength. Its images remain present wherever the bereaved are deprived of provision or those without defenders are stripped of their means to stand. Because the line is spoken as a charge, its force does not make it true of the person accused.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Naming harm does not make an accuser truthful. Job 42:7 says Eliphaz has not spoken rightly, so moral urgency alone does not prove a charge.
THE ROOT
שִׁלַּחְתָּ
shillachta
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
Send forth, release, or let go.
“sent away” in this verse is shillachta. The Hebrew carries both sending forth and releasing; paired with “empty-handed,” that release becomes dismissal without provision. The same root can describe waters sent forth to restore sight, so the sending itself is not the harm, the abandonment is.
ALSO GROWS
shaliach: A messenger, one who is sent.
שָׁלִיחַ
The branch makes the sending agent visible: the widow is sent away by someone, not simply described as leaving.
Shiloach: Sent forth; the name of the waters associated with Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
These sent waters restore sight elsewhere; here the sending leaves a widow empty, showing how release can become abandonment.
shulchan: A table, provision spread out.
שֻׁלְחָן
The table holds the image of provision extended; beside it, the widow sent away empty is denied a share.
יְדֻכָּא
yedukka
GROWS FROM
דכא
daka
Crush or press down.
“broken” in this verse is yedukka. The verb pictures the orphan’s arms as being crushed down, a forceful destruction of strength and reach. A related form, נִדְכֶּה (nidkeh, crushed or contrite), describes the crushed heart in Psalm 51:17, holding bodily force and inward abasement in the same word-family.
ALSO GROWS
daka: To crush or press down.
דָּכָא
This is the root’s basic action: the image is force applied until strength is diminished.
nidkeh: Crushed, contrite.
נִדְכֶּה
The word used of a crushed heart shows that this root can describe both bodily harm and an inward state of abasement.
THE PATTERN
Scripture measures power by whether people with the least protection retain provision and the means to stand.
Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow’s raiment to pledge:The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.THE THREAD
And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.This verse shows that a charge can invoke the widow and orphan and still be spoken wrongly: the LORD says Eliphaz has not spoken rightly. The harm named in Job 22:9 remains visible, but the accusation does not gain truth merely by naming it.
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