What Does Job 39:20 Mean in the King James?
Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? the glory of his nostrils is terrible.
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 word rendered “afraid” shares its Hebrew root with “earthquake,” making the horse’s fear a force visible in the body.
THE MEANING
The question reaches you as a limit: you cannot summon this horse’s force by command. Its snorting carries majesty and dread together, while the word rendered “afraid” carries the sense of shaking. The creature’s power is visible in its body, but it is not yours to author.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that command can manufacture the force it handles.
THE ROOT
תַּרְעִישֶׁנּוּ
tar'ishennu
GROWS FROM
רעש
To shake or quake; in this form, to make him shake.
The verb rendered “afraid” carries the force of shaking, giving fear an outward, bodily register. The same root names an earthquake, placing the horse’s trembling in the same word family as the ground’s upheaval.
ALSO GROWS
ra'ash: Earthquake; shaking or tumult.
רַעַשׁ
This noun shows the ground-shaking force inside the verb rendered “afraid.”
hir'ish: To cause to shake or quake.
הִרְעִישׁ
This causative form shares the verse’s action: the question is whether a person can set that force in motion.
THE PATTERN
A force beyond human command becomes visible through the shaking or thunderous movement it sets loose.
Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.THE THREAD
And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:The word translated “earthquake” is רַעַשׁ (ra’ash, “shaking”), from the same root as the verb rendered “afraid” here. The shared word family lets the horse’s terror register with the physical force of the ground’s upheaval.
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