What Does Job 34:8 Mean in the King James?
Which goeth in company with the workers of iniquity, and walketh with wicked men.
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 Hebrew moves from a bond to a walk: company is not a backdrop but a direction.
THE MEANING
Here, belonging has a direction: a person is joined to those who do harm and moves alongside people marked by wickedness. The verse presents company as more than proximity; it is a shared path.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a person can join themselves to harm while remaining untouched by its direction.
THE ROOT
חֲבֻרָה
chaburah
GROWS FROM
ח־ב־ר
To join, bind together, or associate.
The word translated “company” carries the sense of joining or association. The verse describes an attachment to those who do harm, not just their accidental presence nearby.
ALSO GROWS
chabar: To join, couple, or associate.
חָבַר
This verb shows the active joining contained in the idea of company.
chaver: A companion or associated group.
חֶבֶר
A companion is someone joined with another, making the bond in this verse part of its meaning.
לָלֶכֶת
lalekhet
GROWS FROM
ה־ל־ך
To walk, go, or move along a path.
“walketh” in this verse is lalekhet. The Hebrew word for walking also means going, so the verse makes companionship movement: the person is moving alongside the people named. The bond and the path reinforce each other.
ALSO GROWS
halakh: To walk or go.
הָלַךְ
This is the root verb behind the movement described in the verse.
holekh: One who walks or goes.
הוֹלֵךְ
This form pictures a person in motion, underscoring that the verse describes a shared course.
THE PATTERN
The company a person keeps can shape the path and character they share.
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.THE THREAD
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?Micah uses the same Hebrew root for “walk” to describe moving humbly with God. That shared root opens Job’s verse further: walking with someone carries a direction, and the companion changes the path.
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