What Does Job 3:14 Mean in the King James?

With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves;

Job 3:14 · KJV

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 calls the powerful builders of “desolate places,” placing ruin inside the very work meant to endure.

THE MEANING

The verse places kings and counselors beside you in death’s stillness, among those who build for themselves. Rank cannot secure a separate resting place, and the work they raise is held together with desolation.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that power or monumental work can guarantee a private refuge from death: even kings and builders share the same rest.

THE ROOT

חֳרָבוֹת

choravot

GROWS FROM

חרב

To become dry, desolate, or laid waste.

“desolate places” in this verse is choravot. The word for these places belongs to the same root family as drying up and being laid waste. The line lets the ruin remain present inside what is built for oneself.

ALSO GROWS

charav: To dry up or be laid waste.

חָרַב

The ruin in the verse carries the sense of something dried out or made waste.

chorbah: A ruin or desolation.

חָרְבָּה

This related noun makes the desolate place a state of ruin, not merely an empty location.

הַבֹּנִים

habbonim

GROWS FROM

בנה

To build or establish.

“built” in this verse is habbonim. The Hebrew pictures these people as “the builders,” keeping their act of building vivid beside the word for ruin. The verse’s striking tension is that their building is named through the desolation it leaves or embodies.

ALSO GROWS

banah: To build or establish.

בָּנָה

This is the root verb behind “the builders,” naming the act that leads directly into the verse’s image of ruins.

mivneh: A structure or building.

מִבְנֶה

This related noun names what building produces; here, the built place remains bound to desolation.

THE PATTERN

Death exposes the limits of self-built permanence: rank and stored works cannot secure the builder.

For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.

Psalm 49:17 · KJVLike Job’s kings, the person’s status and possessions cannot follow him into death.

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?

Luke 12:20 · KJVThe verse shows that what a person has gathered cannot guarantee continued possession when death arrives.

For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.

1 Timothy 6:7 · KJVIt states plainly the limit Job’s image gives to kings and builders alike: no one carries their earthly works away.

THE THREAD

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

Isaiah 58:12 · KJV

Isaiah pairs building with ancient ruins too: ⁨בנה⁩ (banah, build) and ⁨חרב⁩ (charav, become desolate). In Job, the builders make desolate places for themselves; in Isaiah, building restores ruined places for others.

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