What Does Job 28:25 Mean in the King James?
To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure.
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 makes the invisible countable: the wind has weight, and the waters are held to a measure.
THE MEANING
The world you inhabit is ordered down to its unseen movements: wind has weight, and waters have measure. What feels vast or intangible is still held within proportion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what cannot be seen or grasped is therefore weightless, chaotic, or beyond measure.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁקָל
mishqal
GROWS FROM
שקל
sh-q-l
to weigh
The root links the result, weight, to the act of weighing and to a named unit of weight. Beside רוּחַ (ruach, breath and wind), it makes the verse’s striking claim concrete: even moving air belongs to an order that can be weighed.
ALSO GROWS
shaqal: to weigh
שָׁקַל
The verb names the action behind the noun: weight is assessed, not merely possessed.
sheqel: a shekel; a unit of weight
שֶׁקֶל
The shekel shows the root extending from weighing into a countable standard.
מִדָּה
middah
GROWS FROM
מדד
m-d-d
to measure
The root names both measuring as an act and the extent produced by it. The waters are not merely present; their spread is apportioned, pairing their measure with the weight given to wind.
ALSO GROWS
madad: to measure
מָדַד
The verb shows measure as an act of gauging extent.
middah: measure, size, extent
מִדָּה
This is the verse’s own word for the extent assigned to the waters.
THE PATTERN
The created world is held within measure, including what cannot be grasped by human hands.
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.THE THREAD
Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.Job’s “wind” is רוּחַ (ruach, breath and wind), the same Hebrew word rendered “spirit” here. In Job it is weighed; here it is sent forth, and creation comes into being.
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