What Does Job 27:21 Mean in the King James?
The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth: and as a storm hurleth him out of his place.
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 word for “place” grows from “stand,” so the storm does not merely move him; it strips away his standing.
THE MEANING
The verse gives the reader a picture of a life exposed to displacement: the east wind carries the man off, and the storm throws him from the position he occupies. The second blow intensifies the first until even his place provides no foothold.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that having a place means having secure footing; a position can be lost as swiftly as the storm can remove the one who occupies it.
THE ROOT
יִשָּׂאֵהוּ
yissaʾēhû
GROWS FROM
נ־שׂ־א
The root נ־שׂ־א (nāśāʾ) means to lift, carry, or bear.
“carrieth” in this verse is yissaʾēhû. The same root can describe bearing crookedness, with the sense of releasing or forgiving it. Here the person himself becomes what the wind bears away, so the word holds both carrying and removal.
ALSO GROWS
maśśāʾ: burden, load
מַשָּׂא
A burden is something carried; this branch makes the wind’s action feel like bearing a weight away.
nōśēʾ ʿāwōn: bearing or releasing crookedness; forgiving wrongdoing
נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן
In Exodus, the same root bears crookedness; here it bears a person away.
מִמְּקֹמוֹ
mimmeqōmô
GROWS FROM
ק־ו־ם
The root ק־ו־ם (qûm) means to stand or rise.
The Hebrew word for place belongs to the family of standing and rising. He is hurled away from more than a location: the position that seemed to give him footing is gone.
ALSO GROWS
qûm: rise, stand
קוּם
This verb gives the root’s basic image of taking a stand or rising to one’s feet.
māqôm: place, standing-place
מָקוֹם
This is the noun in the verse: the place from which the man is driven.
hēqîm: raise, establish
הֵקִים
To establish something is to make it stand, echoing the footing his place seemed to offer.
THE PATTERN
When what seems settled lacks enduring footing, a passing force can remove it at once.
The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.THE THREAD
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.The word נֹשֵׂא (nōśēʾ, bearing) in Exodus comes from the same root נ־שׂ־א (nāśāʾ, to lift, carry, or bear) as Job’s “carrieth.” In Job the person is borne away; in Exodus crookedness is borne or released, so one root holds carrying away and release together.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us