What Does Job 36:14 Mean in the King James?
They die in youth, and their life is among the unclean.
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 holds a living soul dying young beside the qĕdēšîm, a group-name rooted in “set apart” that carries a cultic meaning here.
THE MEANING
The verse names the vulnerability plainly: a living soul may die in youth. It places that life among the qĕdēšîm, holding the death and its unsettling setting together without explaining them away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that youth itself guarantees safety from death.
THE ROOT
קְדֵשִׁים
qĕdēšîm
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
Set apart; consecrated.
The KJV renders this group “unclean,” while the Hebrew form is built from the root for being set apart. In this context, qĕdēšîm is often understood to refer to male cult prostitutes, so the root’s language of consecration sits beside a disturbing role.
ALSO GROWS
qādōsh: Set apart.
קָדוֹשׁ
It shares the root and makes the word’s underlying idea of separation audible.
qōdesh: That which is set apart; sacredness.
קֹדֶשׁ
It shows how the same root can describe what is consecrated, even as this verse names a troubling group.
נַפְשָׁם
nafsham
GROWS FROM
נפש
n-p-sh
To be refreshed or restored.
The Hebrew subject is their nephesh, the living soul, where the KJV says “they.” The wording therefore places the death on the living person themselves, not on an abstract idea of life.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh: Living soul; person.
נֶפֶשׁ
It is the singular form behind “their living soul” in the first clause.
nāphash: To be refreshed or recover.
נָפַשׁ
This related form gives the root a sense of restoration that throws the soul’s death into sharper relief.
חַיָּתָם
chayyatam
GROWS FROM
חיה
ḥ-y-h
To live; be alive.
The second clause uses chayyah for “life,” while the first names the nephesh that dies. The parallel wording holds the living person and their life side by side, though English makes the first one simply “they.”
ALSO GROWS
ḥay: Living; alive.
חַי
It shares the root’s direct language of being alive.
ḥayyim: Life.
חַיִּים
It is another familiar form of the same root, clarifying the sense of chayyatam here.
THE PATTERN
Youth and strength do not secure a life against its ending.
Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction: bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in thee.Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.THE THREAD
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.Genesis joins nephesh (living soul) and chayyah (life) in the phrase “a living soul”; Job 36:14 uses both words in parallel. That shared wording makes the loss here land on the whole living person, not an abstraction.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us