What Does Job 24:16 Mean in the King James?
In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the daytime: they know not the light.
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 burglary begins before night: by day, the house has already been marked as theirs.
THE MEANING
The verse exposes a pattern alive now: the house is marked in daylight and entered in darkness. Night covers the breach, but it cannot make the intention new; the act already has a daylight beginning, and its actors “know not the light.”
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Darkness does not erase the daylight choice: concealment of the entry is not absence of intent.
THE ROOT
חִתְּמוּ
ḥittemu
GROWS FROM
חתם
ḥ-t-m
To seal, stamp, or impress.
The word translated “marked” comes from a root that can mean sealing or stamping. Their choice of a house is already impressed in daylight; the night conceals the entry, not the beginning of the act.
ALSO GROWS
ḥotam: Seal or signet
חֹתָם
A signet leaves an identifying mark, sharpening the sense that the house is deliberately designated.
ḥatum: Sealed or closed
חָתוּם
This branch carries a sense of closure that contrasts with the later breach into the house.
יַחְתְּרוּ
yaḥteru
GROWS FROM
חתר
ḥ-t-r
To dig through or make a breach.
The verb names a deliberate opening through a barrier. Its root appears again where Ezekiel is told to dig through a wall, linking Job’s hidden entry with the act of exposing what lies behind a surface.
ALSO GROWS
ḥatar-na: Dig through, please
חֲתָר־נָא
In Ezekiel 8:8, the command opens a wall and reveals a door behind it.
va’eḥtōr: And I dug through
וָאֶחְתֹּר
The same root describes the breach being made, making the hidden interior accessible.
THE PATTERN
Darkness may cover a deed, but it does not erase the intention formed in the light.
Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.THE THREAD
Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.Job’s “dig through” is יַחְתְּרוּ (yaḥteru), from חתר (ḥatar), “to dig through”; Ezekiel uses the same root for digging into a wall. In Ezekiel the breach reveals a hidden interior, sharpening Job’s image of a house entered through deliberate penetration.
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