What Does Job 30:9 Mean in the King James?
And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.
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 mockery does not merely speak about Job; it turns him into something people perform and repeat.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to the humiliation of being made material for public amusement: people turn a person into their song and their byword. Their refrain can reduce someone to a caricature, but it does not contain the whole person.
THE ROOT
נְגִינָתָם
neginatam
GROWS FROM
נגן
n-g-n
To play music, especially on a stringed instrument.
The word for “song” comes from a root of playing music, so the image is active: Job becomes material that others perform. Paired with “byword,” the verse shows ridicule as both a performance and a phrase people repeat.
ALSO GROWS
nagan: To play music.
נָגַן
The verb makes the song a public act: the mockers are playing Job’s story for amusement.
neginah: Instrumental music or a song.
נְגִינָה
This related noun shows the performed music beneath the word translated “song.”
menaggen: A musician or player.
מְנַגֵּן
The performer branch completes the picture: Job is made the subject of what others play.
THE PATTERN
Public scorn turns a person into a refrain or label that others repeat.
They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.THE THREAD
They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.Psalm 69:12 uses the same Hebrew word for “song,” נְגִינוֹת (neginot), from נגן (n-g-n), to play music. Job’s image of becoming someone’s song is thus repeated as a public performance of scorn.
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