What Does Job 24:24 Mean in the King James?

They are exalted for a little while, but are gone and brought low; they are taken out of the way as all other, and cut off as the tops of the ears of corn.

Job 24:24 · 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.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The rise is already under the sign of harvest: what stands high can be the part cut away.

THE MEANING

The verse holds elevation and its ending in the same frame: they are high for a little while, then absent and brought low. Their removal is pictured as the cutting of grain heads, and their status does not set them apart from the common fate named here.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that visible elevation guarantees lasting security: the verse gives that height only a little while.

THE ROOT

יִקָּפְצוּ

yiqqafetsu

GROWS FROM

קפץ

qaphats

To close, shut, or draw together.

The verb rendered “cut off” comes from a root whose other branches describe closing. The harvest image carries a sense of closure as well as removal.

ALSO GROWS

tiqpots: Shut, as in “shut your hand” (Deuteronomy 15:7).

תִּקְפֹּץ

The same root can describe a hand closing; here it gives the grain’s cutting away a further sense of closure.

haqaphets: Shut up or close, as in “shut up his tender mercies” (Psalm 77:9).

הֲקָפֵץ

The root also describes compassion as shut up, showing how its image of closure extends beyond physical removal.

רֹמוּ

romu

GROWS FROM

רום

rum

To rise, be high, or be exalted.

“exalted” in this verse is romu. The word belongs to the same height-family as Hebrew words for what is high and for height itself. Here that height has a stated limit: it lasts only a little while before the verse turns to absence and lowering.

ALSO GROWS

ram: High or exalted.

רָם

This branch makes the height in “exalted” concrete; the verse places that height within a brief span.

marom: Height or a high place.

מָרוֹם

The word for height shares the same root, underscoring that the verse’s elevation is a position that can end.

THE PATTERN

Visible elevation can be brief, ending in disappearance or being brought low.

That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?

Job 20:5 · KJVTriumph is named as real but brief, just as Job 24:24 gives exaltation only a little while.

Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.

Psalm 37:36 · KJVThe powerful figure’s disappearance shows how quickly apparent stature can give way to absence.

But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.

James 1:10 · KJVThe lowering and passing flower echo Job’s image of a rise ending like a harvested grain head.

THE THREAD

Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.

Psalm 77:9 · KJV

The verb behind “shut up” shares the root ⁨קפץ⁩ (qaphats, “close, shut, draw together”) with the verb rendered “cut off” here. In the psalm, the same root applies to compassion, so the grain image carries the root’s sense of closure as well as removal.

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