What Does Job 30:10 Mean in the King James?
They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face.
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
They flee from him at a distance, yet bring their contempt close enough to spit in his face.
THE MEANING
You can be treated as repellent, kept at a distance, and still have contempt pressed directly onto your body. The verse names that cruelty without disguising it: rejection becomes a spit in the face, an assault on the place where your presence meets another person.
THE ROOT
מִפְּנֵי
mippeney
GROWS FROM
פנה
Turn, face toward; by extension, face or presence.
The Hebrew places the spit “from before my face,” making the insult direct and bodily. The face carries the sense of presence: they withdraw from him, yet violate the very presence they avoid.
ALSO GROWS
panim: Face; presence.
פָּנִים
The spitting targets the place where a person is visibly present to others.
panah: Turn; face toward.
פָּנָה
This turn toward sharpens the verse’s contrast between fleeing away and directing an insult at his face.
lifnei: Before; in the presence of.
לִפְנֵי
The phrase “from before my face” puts the humiliation within his immediate presence.
רָחֲקוּ
rachaqu
GROWS FROM
רחק
Be or become far; withdraw into distance.
“flee far” in this verse is rachaqu. The same root underlies both the act of going far away and the state of being distant. Yet the next image collapses that distance: their bodies withdraw, while their contempt reaches his face.
ALSO GROWS
rachoq: Far; distant.
רָחוֹק
This is the distance they create between themselves and the speaker.
merchaq: Distance; a far-off place.
מֶרְחָק
The word makes their withdrawal spatial, so the spitting that follows feels especially direct.
THE PATTERN
Contempt can turn rejection into direct bodily humiliation.
All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands,THE THREAD
Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands,Both verses put the same violence in view: contempt takes bodily form as spit on the face. The insult crosses the distance its contempt tries to keep.
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