What Does Job 27:20 Mean in the King James?
Terrors take hold on him as waters, a tempest stealeth him away in the night.
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
Job pairs two arrivals: terror reaches him like water, then the storm steals him under cover of night.
THE MEANING
Terror reaches a person with the rise of waters, surrounding and overtaking him. A tempest then steals him in the night, so the danger is both engulfing and sudden. The verse speaks of a collapse that arrives before he can get clear of it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that danger always gives warning: here it overtakes like water and takes its victim by stealth.
THE ROOT
יִשִּׂגֵהוּ
yissigehu
GROWS FROM
נָשַׂג
to reach, catch up with, overtake
The word carries the sense of something reaching and catching up with him. English “take hold” can sound like a static grip; the Hebrew also pictures terror arriving until he is overtaken.
ALSO GROWS
overtake: they reach and overtake you
הִשִּׂיגוּךָ
The same root describes what catches up with a person, making Job’s terror feel like an arrival that cannot be kept at a distance.
attain: to reach or attain
לְהַשִּׂיג
This branch shows the root’s basic movement: reaching its target, whether as attainment or as the terror that overtakes him.
גְּנָבָתוּ
genavatu
GROWS FROM
גָּנַב
to steal, take secretly
“stealeth him away” in this verse is genavatu. The tempest is described with the language of theft: it does not only strike; it carries him off. Beside terror that reaches him like water, this gives the danger two forms, an engulfing rush and a covert taking.
ALSO GROWS
thief: one who steals
גַּנָּב
The storm behaves like a thief, arriving in the night and taking him away.
theft: the act of stealing
גְּנֵבָה
This branch makes the verse’s force plain: the storm’s arrival is figured as a taking, not merely as weather.
THE PATTERN
Calamity is pictured as both an engulfing force that overtakes and a thief that arrives unseen.
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.THE THREAD
But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:The word translated “take hold” in Job comes from נָשַׂג (nasag), meaning to reach or overtake; Deuteronomy uses the same root for curses that “overtake” the hearer. In both verses, what seemed distant catches up and reaches its target.
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