What Does Job 38:40 Mean in the King James?
When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait?
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 for “lie in wait” names an ambush: here, hidden stillness is already part of the pursuit.
THE MEANING
You are shown a stillness with hunger directed toward prey: a creature settles into covered shelter and waits. What is hidden can shelter the one inside while giving it a place from which to pursue.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Hiddenness does not always mean harmless retreat; here, concealment gives hunger a place to wait for its prey.
THE ROOT
אָרֵב
ʾōrēḇ
GROWS FROM
ארב
ʾ-r-b
To lie in wait or position oneself for an ambush.
“lie in wait” in this verse is ʾōrēḇ. The phrase is more than a description of waiting: its Hebrew root carries the intent of an ambush. The animals’ stillness already contains the pursuit, before the prey appears.
ALSO GROWS
ʾōrēḇ: An ambusher; one lying in wait.
אֹרֵב
This is the form used in the verse, making the hidden waiting purposeful.
maʾărāḇ: An ambush or ambush place.
מַאֲרָב
This branch names the prepared position that the verse’s hidden waiting implies.
בַּסֻּכָּה
bassukkāh
GROWS FROM
סכך
s-k-k
To cover, screen, or hedge over.
The word translated “covert” is a sukkah, a covered shelter. Paired with the ambush root, the covering is both shelter for the creature and concealment for its pursuit.
ALSO GROWS
sāḵaḵ: To cover, screen, or hedge over.
סָכַךְ
The root brings the idea of covering into the verse’s hidden place.
sukkāh: A booth or covered shelter.
סֻכָּה
This is the shelter named in the verse, where the creature waits concealed.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures predatory danger as hidden or roaming while it seeks prey.
He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.THE THREAD
He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.Job and Psalm 10 use the root ארב (ʾ-r-b), “to lie in wait, to ambush.” Psalm 10 makes the concealed pursuit visible as a lion in its den, the same hidden waiting, with its intended prey named.
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