What Does Job 39:16 Mean in the King James?
She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers: her labour is in vain without fear;
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 separates bearing young from protecting them: labor alone cannot supply the fear that keeps them safe.
THE MEANING
Here, you see the ostrich’s young treated as though they were not hers; parenthood itself does not guarantee care. Her labor is real, but without fear it leaves the young exposed and comes to nothing. The verse holds the unsettling gap between producing life and protecting it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the assumption that bearing young automatically gives a mother a protective instinct.
THE ROOT
פַּחַד
pachad
GROWS FROM
פחד
Dread, alarm, or fear in response to danger.
Here, “without fear” means without alarm, not without courage. This root’s forms describe dread that rises in response to danger; the ostrich has effort but no such alarm, so effort does not become vigilance.
ALSO GROWS
pachad pachadti: “I feared a fear,” or “I was greatly afraid” (Job 3:25).
פָּחַד פָּחַדְתִּי
The repeated root makes fear an experienced alarm, not an abstract virtue.
pachadu-pachad: “They feared a fear,” or “they were in great fear” (Psalm 53:5).
פָּחֲדוּ־פַחַד
The same root names the force of dread that is absent from the ostrich’s behavior.
לְרִיק
ləriq
GROWS FROM
ריק
Emptiness; to be empty or leave empty.
“In vain” pictures labor ending in emptiness. The outcome is not merely disappointing: nothing is secured for the young.
ALSO GROWS
req: Empty or vacant.
רֵיק
The root makes the result of the ostrich’s labor an empty one.
reqam: Empty-handed, with nothing.
רֵיקָם
This related form makes emptiness tangible: something departs or is left with nothing in hand.
יְגִיעָהּ
yegiah
GROWS FROM
יגע
To toil or grow weary.
“labour” in this verse is yegiah. The word keeps exertion attached to the weariness it costs. The verse can hold two facts together, real labor and an empty result, without treating effort itself as successful care.
ALSO GROWS
yagaʿ: To toil or grow weary.
יָגַע
The verb carries both the activity and its cost, sharpening the contrast with the empty outcome.
yegiaʿ: Toil or labor, as in “the labour of thine hands” (Psalm 128:2).
יְגִיעַ
This form shows the same root describing work whose product can be seen, while Job’s line says such effort does not itself protect the young.
THE PATTERN
Scripture calls effort empty when it fails to preserve or produce its intended fruit.
A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.THE THREAD
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.This verse turns the same labor-and-emptiness pairing around: labor can be “not in vain” when it belongs to the Lord. The contrast opens Job’s line further: effort is real, but effort alone does not make the young safe.
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