What Does Job 31:22 Mean in the King James?

Then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone.

Job 31:22 · 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 strength raised against a vulnerable person is the very strength Job names as liable to break.

THE MEANING

The verse sets a brutal consequence against the possibility of harming the vulnerable: a shoulder torn from its joint and an arm broken from the bone. It makes the threat bodily and total, placing the force used against another under the same measure.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that the powerful can harm the vulnerable without putting their own power at stake.

THE ROOT

תִּשָּׁבֵר

tishshaver

GROWS FROM

שבר

sh-b-r

to break, shatter, or fracture

The verb is passive: the arm is not merely weakened; it is broken. The root can describe a fracture or breach, so the oath pictures the body’s strength losing its structure.

ALSO GROWS

shavar: to break

שָׁבַר

This is the root verb behind the arm’s breaking.

shever: a break, fracture, or breach

שֶׁבֶר

The noun makes the damage concrete: the body’s integrity has been split.

shibber: to shatter or break into pieces

שִׁבֵּר

This intensified form echoes the severity of the threatened bodily consequence.

תִּפֹּל

tippol

GROWS FROM

נפל

n-p-l

to fall

“fall” in this verse is tippol. Here, falling describes the shoulder coming away from its place. Alongside the root for breaking, it moves from dislocation to fracture: the body loses both alignment and integrity.

ALSO GROWS

naphal: to fall

נָפַל

This is the verb used for the shoulder’s fall.

hippil: to cause to fall or cast down

הִפִּיל

The causative form shows that the root can describe power bringing something down.

mappalah: collapse or downfall

מַפָּלָה

This noun extends the image of falling to a complete collapse.

THE PATTERN

When strength is turned against the vulnerable, Scripture treats that strength as answerable and liable to be stripped away.

If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate:

Job 31:21 · KJVThe verse names the possible abuse of power that makes Job’s bodily oath so severe.

For the arms of the wicked shall be broken: but the LORD upholdeth the righteous.

Psalm 37:17 · KJVThe image of broken arms makes the loss of power a consequence of wickedness.

He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.

Luke 1:52 · KJVThe same reversal appears in the lowering of the mighty and the raising of those with little power.

THE THREAD

Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none.

Psalm 10:15 · KJV

Both verses pair the arm with ⁨שבר⁩ (shavar, “to break”). Job makes the broken arm the consequence in a self-imposed oath; the psalm asks for the oppressor’s arm to be broken.

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