What Does Job 38:27 Mean in the King James?
To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth?
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 rain reaches a twice-named wasteland, fills it, and brings green growth out of it.
THE MEANING
The question pictures rain reaching uncultivated ground and satisfying it; even there, tender growth comes forth. What appears barren remains within the reach of provision, and growth does not wait for a place to become useful to people.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that ruined or unused places are beyond care, or that new life appears only after people make the conditions favorable.
THE ROOT
לְהַשְׂבִּיעַ
ləhaśbîaʿ
GROWS FROM
שׂבע
ś-b-ʿ
Be full or sated; in this verb, make full.
“satisfy” in this verse is ləhaśbîaʿ. The verb describes the land being made full, not merely wetted. The root also appears in שָׂבֵעַ (śāvēaʿ, satisfied) and שֹׂבַע (śōvaʿ, satiety), so the image is abundance reaching a place of ruin.
ALSO GROWS
śāvēaʿ: Full, satisfied.
שָׂבֵעַ
This form names the state the land is brought into: fullness.
śōvaʿ: Being sated; plenty.
שֹׂבַע
It shows that the verb carries the sense of abundant filling.
שֹׁאָה וּמְשֹׁאָה
sho'ah u-mesho'ah
GROWS FROM
שאה
sh-ʾ-h
Be desolate or lie in ruin.
“desolate and waste” in this verse is sho'ah u-mesho'ah. The Hebrew pairs שֹׁאָה (sho’ah, desolation) with מְשֹׁאָה (mesho’ah, devastation), echoing ruin twice before speaking of satisfaction. The verse asks whether provision reaches even this emphatically barren ground.
ALSO GROWS
sho'ah: Desolation, ruin.
שֹׁאָה
It names the land’s barrenness directly.
mesho'ah: Devastation, waste.
מְשֹׁאָה
The echo intensifies the description: the ground is not merely empty but laid waste.
לְהַצְמִיחַ
ləhaṣmiaḥ
GROWS FROM
צמח
ṣ-m-ḥ
Sprout, grow.
“spring forth” in this verse is ləhaṣmiaḥ. The causative verb comes from the same root as צֶמַח (ṣemaḥ, a sprout or shoot). The question is who brings growth into being precisely where the land is described as ruin.
ALSO GROWS
ṣāmaḥ: To sprout, grow.
צָמַח
This is the root’s basic action, the growth the verse asks about.
ṣemaḥ: A sprout, shoot, or branch.
צֶמַח
The noun gives growth a visible form: a new shoot emerging from the ground.
THE PATTERN
Life-giving provision reaches beyond human cultivation and brings growth where human effort cannot account for it.
He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.THE THREAD
He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;Job’s “cause ... to spring forth” and the psalm’s “causeth ... to grow” share צמח (ṣ-m-ḥ, sprout or grow). The psalm shows that this growth feeds other lives; Job’s question asks who brings it even to waste ground.
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