What Does Job 40:14 Mean in the King James?

Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

Job 40:14 · KJV

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

God makes the claim that your hand can deliver you conditional on your being able to do God’s work of humbling the proud.

THE MEANING

The verse places you under an impossible condition: if you can abase the proud and bring wickedness low, then your own hand can deliver you. It exposes self-rescue as a claim to power you cannot command; what exceeds you cannot be conquered by force of will.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that determination alone can deliver you from anything.

THE ROOT

תוֹשִׁעֲךָ

tôshîʿăḵā

GROWS FROM

ישע

y-sh-ʿ

Deliver, bring out from constriction into spaciousness.

The verb translated “save” carries the movement of being brought out. Its root also names deliverance and a deliverer, so the verse turns on whose hand can actually bring you out.

ALSO GROWS

yeshuah: Deliverance

יְשׁוּעָה

The same root names the act of being brought out, making the question one of where deliverance comes from.

moshia: Deliverer

מוֹשִׁיעַ

This branch names the one who brings someone out, sharpening the verse’s question about whether Job’s hand can carry that power.

אוֹדֶךָּ

ʾodekha

GROWS FROM

ידה

y-d-h

Acknowledge, give thanks, praise.

Here “confess” means to acknowledge or concede, not to admit guilt. God says he would acknowledge Job’s power only if Job could first do the impossible work of divine rule.

ALSO GROWS

todah: Thanks, thanksgiving

תּוֹדָה

Thanksgiving is an expression of acknowledgment; this shared root makes God’s promised concession a recognition of what Job can truly do.

modeh: One who acknowledges or gives thanks

מוֹדֶה

This related form keeps the verse’s “confess” close to recognition rather than guilt.

THE PATTERN

Deliverance belongs to the power that brings people out; a human hand cannot claim it as its own.

For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them.

Psalm 44:3 · KJVThe verse names the contrast directly: their own arm does not deliver them; the LORD’s right hand does.

And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.

Isaiah 59:16 · KJVWhen no human intercessor is found, deliverance comes through the LORD’s own arm.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9 · KJVThe passage places deliverance outside human achievement and removes the ground for boasting.

THE THREAD

A Psalm. O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.

Psalm 98:1 · KJV

Job’s line makes the human right hand’s power conditional on matching God’s rule. Psalm 98:1 uses the same deliverance root and names the LORD’s right hand as the one that brings victory.

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