What Does Job 3:17 Mean in the King James?
There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.
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
Rest here is the end of two forces at once: the wicked’s agitation and the weary person’s toil.
THE MEANING
This verse gives your exhaustion a blunt image: in the place of the dead, the wicked’s turmoil stops, and those worn by labor settle into rest. It lets death appear as the end of both disturbance and toil.
THE ROOT
יָנוּחוּ
yanuḥu
GROWS FROM
נוח
Settle, come to rest.
“be at rest” in this verse is yanuḥu. This verb pictures rest as coming to settle, rather than as something the weary must achieve. The line imagines the motion of burden finally stopping.
ALSO GROWS
menuchah: Rest, resting place.
מְנוּחָה
The same root can name rest as a place of settling, as in Psalm 116:7.
naḥ: He rested, settled.
נָח
This form makes the root’s movement plain: to come to rest is to settle.
רֹגֶז
rogez
GROWS FROM
רגז
Tremble, quake, or be agitated.
Rogez names agitation or tumult, so English “troubling” can sound like one person disturbing another while the Hebrew also makes the disturbance itself audible. The verse imagines that turmoil ceasing.
ALSO GROWS
ragaz: To tremble or be agitated.
רָגַז
The verb shows the movement beneath the noun: agitation that shakes or disturbs.
rogez: Agitation, tumult.
רֹגֶז
This is the word in the verse, naming what comes to an end there.
יְגִיעֵי
yegiey
GROWS FROM
יגע
Labor, toil, grow weary.
The weary are described through a root that can name both exhaustion and the labor that produces it. Their rest follows the draining work itself.
ALSO GROWS
yagea: Weary, exhausted.
יָגֵעַ
This form names the state of those who have been spent by labor.
yegiah: Toil, labor.
יְגִיעָה
This branch names the work whose exhaustion the verse says can cease.
THE PATTERN
Across scripture, rest names the ending of toil and agitation and is given to the burdened.
And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.THE THREAD
Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee.Job’s “be at rest” and the Psalm’s “rest” share the Hebrew root נוח (nuach), meaning settle or come to rest. Job imagines that settling in death; the Psalm speaks of the soul returning to rest, showing the same root’s movement without erasing the difference between the verses.
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