What Does Job 36:16 Mean in the King James?
Even so would he have removed thee out of the strait into a broad place, where there is no straitness; and that which should be set on thy table should be full of fatness.
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 verse pictures deliverance as release from constriction into room enough for a table full of provision.
THE MEANING
Your distress is not the whole landscape. This verse holds open the possibility of being brought from a cramped place into room, where what is set before you is abundant. The movement is from pressure into space, and from space into fullness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that constriction is your permanent measure or that abundance cannot meet you while you are in distress.
THE ROOT
צָר
tsar
GROWS FROM
צ־ר־ר
tsarar
To bind, press, or make tight; narrowness and distress belong to this word family.
The word for “strait” carries tightness and distress in the same family: the trouble is a life pressed into too little room. The verse’s “out of the strait” is release from that pressure, not merely a change of scenery.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight, or constricted.
צַר
This is the word used for the narrow place the verse says you are brought out of.
tsarah: Distress or trouble.
צָרָה
It shows how the language of tightness also names the felt experience of being pressed.
רָחָב
rachav
GROWS FROM
ר־ח־ב
rachav
To be wide or spacious.
“broad place” in this verse is rachav. The same root forms words for width and spaciousness, so the destination is a condition with room to move. Paired with “strait,” it makes the verse’s deliverance a passage from constriction into space.
ALSO GROWS
rachav: To become wide or broad.
רָחַב
The root names the opening movement at the heart of the verse.
merchav: A broad place or open space.
מֶרְחָב
This noun appears in Psalm 118:5 for the roomy place reached after distress.
שֻׁלְחָן
shulchan
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ח
shalach
To send, extend, or release; provision is sent forth and set out.
The table belongs to the language of sending and extending: food is set forth before you. The open place does not end in emptiness; it holds a table made full.
ALSO GROWS
shalach: To send, send forth, release, or stretch out the hand.
שָׁלַח
It gives the table’s provision the sense of what is extended and placed before you.
shilluach: A sending or release.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch echoes the verse’s movement out of pressure and toward what is set out in abundance.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance opens life from pressure into room, where provision can be received in fullness.
I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes;O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged.THE THREAD
I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.The Hebrew carries the same narrow-to-broad movement: distress is named with the language of tightness, and the destination is a broad place. Job’s image adds the full table, making the opening not only an escape from pressure but room for provision.
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