What Does Job 41:31 Mean in the King James?
He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment.
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 sea is pictured not only boiling under Leviathan’s force but as a mixture being stirred in a pot.
THE MEANING
What you face here is Leviathan’s vast force: it heats the deep and stirs the sea like a prepared mixture. The waters are not a distant backdrop; the whole depth moves under that pressure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The deep is not an untouchable stillness beyond the reach of force; here it boils and is stirred.
THE ROOT
מֶרְקָחָה
merqāḥāh
GROWS FROM
ר־ק־ח
r-q-ḥ
To mix or compound, especially by blending ingredients into an aromatic preparation.
The word translated “ointment” carries the image of something compounded by mixing. The sea becomes like a prepared mixture in a pot, so the verse gives its boiling waters not just heat but the motion of ingredients being stirred together.
ALSO GROWS
roqēaḥ: A perfumer or ointment compounder.
רֹקֵחַ
This is the apothecary in Exodus 30:25, the one who blends ingredients into the anointing oil.
mirqaḥat: A compounded ointment or aromatic mixture.
מִרְקַחַת
This is the prepared mixture named alongside the compounder in Exodus 30:25, bringing the verse’s image of a stirred sea into focus.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts water’s upheaval as a visible response to power acting upon the depths.
Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.THE THREAD
And thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary: it shall be an holy anointing oil.The “ointment” in Job belongs to the same ר־ק־ח (r-q-ḥ), “mix or compound,” word family as “ointment compound” and “apothecary” here. Exodus names ingredients blended into an aromatic preparation; Job scales that mixing image up to the sea, as if the deep itself is being stirred in a vessel.
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