What Does Job 4:21 Mean in the King James?
Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.
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 behind “excellency” can also mean “cord,” so the verse pictures the inner line that seems to hold life together being pulled up before wisdom can preserve it.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now in a stark image: what feels like your inner advantage or support can be pulled away, and you die without wisdom. Wisdom does not make human life secure from its ending; the cord within can be lifted before understanding is complete.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that intelligence, excellence, or a strong inner self can guarantee a life that death cannot reach.
THE ROOT
יִתְרָם
yitram
GROWS FROM
יתר
Remain, be left over, or exceed; the related noun can also mean a cord or string.
The word translated “excellency” can name a cord or string, as well as surplus or advantage. Beside “go away,” it can picture a line drawn out from within: what seemed to hold life in place is removed.
ALSO GROWS
yether: Cord, string; also remainder or surplus.
יֶתֶר
This branch makes the verse’s “excellency” tangible: what is within can be pictured as a support line that is pulled up.
yithron: Advantage, profit, or surplus.
יִתְרוֹן
This branch preserves the sense of distinction or advantage, showing how the verse brings human excellence face to face with mortality.
נִסַּע
nissaʿ
GROWS FROM
נסע
Pull up, set out, or depart.
“go away” in this verse is nissaʿ. The Hebrew carries motion: something is pulled up or sets out. Its root links departure with a journey, so the cord’s removal reads as displacement, not merely a fading reputation.
ALSO GROWS
nasaʿ: Set out, depart, or journey.
נָסַע
The same root gives “go away” the sense of leaving a place, sharpening the image of the support being removed.
massaʿ: Journey or stage of a journey.
מַסָּע
This noun makes the movement in the verse visible: departure is a passage from where something was held in place.
THE PATTERN
Human advantage and wisdom cannot be carried beyond the ending of mortal life.
For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.THE THREAD
Make thee two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps.The word translated “journeying” is מַסָּע (massaʿ), from the same root נסע as Job’s “go away.” Here the camps are set in motion; Job turns that same motion inward, to the cord pulled up from within a person.
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