What Does Job 33:11 Mean in the King James?
He putteth my feet in the stocks, he marketh all my paths.
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 word translated “marketh” is the same Hebrew verb used for keeping and guarding, so watchfulness here feels like custody because the feet are already bound.
THE MEANING
When your movement feels constrained, being watched at every turn can feel like custody rather than care. The verse gives that pressure its full shape: your feet are bound, and no path seems outside the gaze.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁמֹר
yishmor
GROWS FROM
שמר
To keep, guard, or watch over.
The Hebrew verb יִשְׁמֹר (yishmor, keeps or watches) carries the sense of guarding as well as observing; “marketh” can sound like mere noting, while the root holds the weight of watchful custody. Beside feet locked in stocks, that keeping feels like surveillance, though the same root can also describe protection.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: One who keeps watch or guards.
שֹׁמֵר
The watcher is present in the verse’s gaze over every path, not only at the place where the feet are restrained.
mishmeret: A charge, guard, or period of watch.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch suggests sustained oversight, echoing the sense that no path escapes attention.
THE PATTERN
Being watched at every step can feel like custody when movement is restrained, while the same keeping can preserve a person’s way.
Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, and lookest narrowly unto all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me:THE THREAD
The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.Both verses use שָׁמַר (shamar, keep or guard). Job’s line experiences that keeping as restraint; the Psalm describes it as protection across every movement, revealing how one root can hold both experiences.
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