What Does Job 27:16 Mean in the King James?
Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay;
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 word translated “raiment” comes from the same root as “put it on” in the next verse, so the text shifts from preparing the clothing to another person wearing it.
THE MEANING
You can heap silver until it is as common as dust and prepare clothing in clay-like abundance. Yet quantity does not settle who wears or inherits it; the next verse gives the clothing to the just and the silver to the innocent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that enough preparation secures lasting possession dissolves here. The next verse names another wearer and inheritor.
THE ROOT
מַלְבּוּשׁ
malbūsh
GROWS FROM
לבש
labash
To clothe or wear; the root names the act of putting clothing on.
English gives you a stored object, “raiment,” and later an action, “put it on.” Hebrew keeps both inside לבש (labash, “to clothe or wear”): what is prepared as an object is already linked to the act of wearing, and verse 17 gives that act to the just.
ALSO GROWS
yilbāsh: He shall wear or put it on.
יִלְבָּשׁ
Job 27:17 uses this form for the just person who wears the prepared clothing; the same root links the hoarded raiment to its next wearer.
lĕvūsh: Garment or clothing.
לְבוּשׁ
This noun shares the clothing root, carrying the sense of something meant to be worn rather than simply stored.
יַצְבֹּר
yiṣbōr
GROWS FROM
צבר
To heap, pile, or accumulate.
English says “heap up,” but צבר (ṣ-b-r, “to pile together”) returns in Psalm 39:6 for the one who heaps up riches and does not know who will gather them. The shared verb makes the pile look less like command and more like accumulated material whose future owner is unknown.
ALSO GROWS
ṣōbēr: He heaps up or accumulates.
צֹבֵר
Psalm 39:6 uses this form for someone who piles up riches without knowing who will gather them.
yiṣbōr: He may heap up or accumulate.
יַצְבֹּר
This verse uses the same root to describe silver gathered in dust-like quantity.
THE PATTERN
What one person accumulates can pass into another person’s hands, so abundance does not secure command over its future.
Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?THE THREAD
He may prepare it, but the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver.“Raiment,” מַלְבּוּשׁ (malbūsh, “garment”), and “shall put it on,” יִלְבָּשׁ (yilbāsh, “shall wear”), come from לבש (labash, “to clothe or wear”). The shared root turns the next verse into the completion of this image: what one prepares, another wears.
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