What Does Job 26:2 Mean in the King James?
How hast thou helped him that is without power? how savest thou the arm that hath no strength?
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 measures rescue by whether it reaches the person whose strength is gone.
THE MEANING
This question tests every claim of help: does it meet the powerless in their actual lack, or only speak around that weakness? The image of a strengthless arm makes the lack concrete: the capacity to reach and act has failed, so deliverance must meet that absence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the lie that declaring help or rescue proves the powerless have received either.
THE ROOT
הוֹשַׁעְתָּ
hôshaʿtā
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-š-ʿ
Deliver, bring out to safety and spaciousness.
“savest” in this verse is hôshaʿtā. The verb asks whether anyone is actually brought out of helplessness. Its root joins the act, the outcome, and the one who carries it out: deliver, deliverance, and deliverer.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuah: deliverance, rescue
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun names the result the verse asks about: whether the powerless are truly brought out.
moshiaʿ: deliverer, rescuer
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This form names the one who effects deliverance, making the verse’s question about what that role accomplishes.
זְרוֹעַ
zĕrōaʿ
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
Sow or scatter seed; in זְרוֹעַ, an extended arm.
The word for arm belongs to the זרע family, which also gives the verb for sowing and the noun for seed. That link ties capacity to an outward reach that can act; here even that reach has no strength.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: to sow, scatter seed
זָרַע
Sowing extends a hand’s action outward; the verse pictures an arm that cannot exert that reach.
zeraʿ: seed, offspring
זֶרַע
The shared root connects the arm’s reach with what is cast outward, sharpening the image of capacity gone still.
THE PATTERN
Help becomes visible when it meets weakness with effective strength or deliverance.
He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.THE THREAD
This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.Job’s הוֹשַׁעְתָּ (hôshaʿtā, “you deliver”) comes from ישע (yasha, “deliver”). Psalm 34:6 uses that same root as the needy person cries, is heard, and is delivered from trouble.
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