What Does Job 30:13 Mean in the King James?
They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper.
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 holds active harm beside absent help: the people damaging the path are effective at advancing ruin, while aid is nowhere to be found.
THE MEANING
This verse gives language to a moment when others damage your way forward and actively contribute to your calamity. Their harm has force, while help is absent. The path is broken, and the abandonment is real.
THE ROOT
יֹעִילוּ
yo'ilu
GROWS FROM
יעל
To be useful, benefit, or profit.
“set forward” in this verse is yo'ilu. The verb carries the sense of contributing or benefiting: their actions have an effect, and that effect advances calamity. The line’s cruelty lies in this usefulness being directed toward ruin.
ALSO GROWS
ho'il: To benefit or be useful.
הוֹעִיל
It carries the same root sense of making a difference through usefulness.
to'elet: Benefit or usefulness.
תּוֹעֶלֶת
This noun makes the root’s idea of contribution explicit: their actions contribute to the calamity.
עֵזֶר
ezer
GROWS FROM
עזר
Help or aid.
עֵזֶר (ezer, help) can name aid itself, not only a person called a helper. The verse ends with that aid absent, placing the broken path beside the lack of support.
ALSO GROWS
azar: To help or assist.
עָזַר
The verb names the action that is missing from this scene.
ezrah: Help or aid.
עֶזְרָה
This form keeps the focus on support itself, which the verse says is unavailable.
THE PATTERN
Opposition compounds distress when the way forward is damaged and human help disappears.
Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.THE THREAD
He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths.Job 30:13 says the path is marred; Job 19:8 returns to the same path word, נתיב (netiv, path), as a way fenced so movement cannot pass. The repeated image makes the damage concrete: the route itself is obstructed.
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