What Does Job 34:30 Mean in the King James?
That the hypocrite reign not, lest the people be ensnared.
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
A ruler’s corruption does not stay within the ruler; it can become the trap that closes around the people.
THE MEANING
God’s restraint of godless rule protects the people from being caught in its snare. The verse speaks now wherever power bears down on others: the people’s freedom reveals what that rule is doing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a ruler’s rise affects only the ruler; a reign can trap the people beneath it.
THE ROOT
מֹקְשֵׁי
mōqĕšê
GROWS FROM
יקש
To set a snare or lay a trap.
“ensnared” in this verse is mōqĕšê. The word is a plural form of מוֹקֵשׁ (moqesh), “snare,” and its root also names the one who sets a snare. Rule becomes a mechanism that can catch a people in its grasp.
ALSO GROWS
moqesh: Snare or trap.
מוֹקֵשׁ
This is the word family behind the people’s being caught: the danger is a trap that closes around them.
yaqush: Fowler, one who catches birds with snares.
יָקוּשׁ
The same root links the snare to the one who sets it, making the people’s entanglement something laid, not accidental.
חָנֵף
ḥānēp̄
GROWS FROM
חנף
To be profane, polluted, or godless.
“hypocrite” in this verse is ḥānēp̄. This word opens beyond the familiar sense of outward pretense: its Hebrew family also names profaneness itself. The danger in the verse is a godless orientation reaching into rule and putting the people at risk.
ALSO GROWS
ḥānēp̄: Profane or godless; here, a profane or godless person.
חָנֵף
The word describes the character of the one whose reign threatens to entangle the people.
ḥănuppāh: Profaneness or pollution.
חֲנֻפָּה
This related noun shows the root’s reach from a person described as profane to the condition itself.
THE PATTERN
Rule becomes a snare when the people bear its cost instead of receiving its protection.
When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;THE THREAD
Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.Job’s image and the psalm’s “snare” share the Hebrew root יקש (y-q-sh; yaqash), whose word family includes both a snare and a fowler. Job names rule that catches people; Psalm 124:7 shows the trap broken and escape becoming possible.
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