What Does Job 41:30 Mean in the King James?
Sharp stones are under him: he spreadeth sharp pointed things upon the mire.
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
Leviathan turns even the mire into a cutting surface: shards lie beneath him, and sharpness spreads across it.
THE MEANING
The scene gives Leviathan no harmless underside: sharp shards sit beneath him, and his movement spreads a sharp surface across the mire. Soft ground does not cushion whatever passes over it; here the mud itself becomes a bed of edges.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The assumption that soft ground makes a dangerous force safe dissolves here: even mire can be covered with edges.
THE ROOT
חַדּוּדֵי
ḥaddudei
GROWS FROM
חדד
ḥ-d-d
To be sharp or to sharpen.
The word for the sharp points belongs to a root that also names sharpening. The verse presents sharpness as an active force: it can cut what lies beneath Leviathan and mark the mire he passes over.
ALSO GROWS
ḥad: Sharp, keen.
חַד
This adjective carries the same sharpness into a direct description of an edge or point.
ḥiddud: Sharpness, a pointed edge.
חִדּוּד
This noun makes explicit the quality the verse spreads over the mire.
יִרְפַּד
yirpad
GROWS FROM
רפד
r-p-d
To spread or lay out as a layer or bed.
The verb translated spreadeth belongs to a word-family used for laying out a bed or covering. That gives the image an unsettling texture: sharpness is laid over the mire like a surface, turning soft ground into something edged.
ALSO GROWS
rippadti: I spread or laid my bed.
רִפַּדְתִּי
This form uses the same root for laying out a surface beneath oneself.
refidato: Its covering or lining.
רְפִידָתוֹ
This related form carries the sense of a laid-out covering, echoing the sharp layer over the mire.
THE PATTERN
Sharpness marks a force by what it can cut, sharpen, or divide.
Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.THE THREAD
Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.The Hebrew word behind sharp points here and the verb behind sharpeneth in Proverbs share the same root. Here sharpness spreads across mire as a threat; there it passes between people as mutual sharpening, showing how the same force takes its character from what it meets.
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