What Does Job 25:6 Mean in the King James?
How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?
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 names humanity as both mortal and ground-born, then sharpens that smallness with two distinct worm images that English gives the same name.
THE MEANING
The verse sets human life at creaturely scale: the mortal and the ground-born are pictured as a maggot and a worm. Beside the preceding image of the moon and stars, this is a stark measure of human frailty before God.
THE ROOT
אֱנוֹשׁ
ʾenosh
GROWS FROM
אנש
ʾ-n-sh
to be weak, sick, or frail
“man” in this verse is ʾenosh. ʾEnosh names the human as mortal, and its root also speaks of sickness or weakness. The parallel names human life from inside its frailty.
ALSO GROWS
ʾanash: to be weak, sick, or incurably ill
אָנַשׁ
This verb shares the root’s language of vulnerability with the word for mortal human.
ʾenushah: a severe or incurable wound or sickness
אֱנוּשָׁה
The branch makes the root’s association with human frailty more visible.
בֶּן־אָדָם
ben-adam
GROWS FROM
אדם
ʾ-d-m
ground or soil; earth-born
“son of man” in this verse is ben-adam. Ben-adam names humanity through the ground beneath it: the human is a child of soil. The verse’s first worm, רִמָּה (rimmah, maggot), and second, תּוֹלֵעָה (toleʿah, worm), sharpen the image; English gives both the same name.
ALSO GROWS
adamah: ground, soil
אֲדָמָה
This branch makes the earth-born sense within ben-adam audible.
adam: a human being
אָדָם
The phrase son of adam identifies the person as belonging to the ground-born human family.
THE PATTERN
Scripture measures human life through its creaturely limits: mortality, dust, and decay.
Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.THE THREAD
But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.Job’s second image, תּוֹלֵעָה (toleʿah, worm), and Psalm’s תּוֹלַעַת (tolaʿat, worm) are forms of the same Hebrew word. Psalm puts that shared image in a first-person cry beside “no man,” making Job’s stark measure of human smallness an immediate voice.
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