What Does Job 5:26 Mean in the King James?

Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.

Job 5:26 · 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

The grave is pictured as harvest’s gathering: a life brought to fullness in its season.

THE MEANING

Your life is pictured here as reaching the grave at fullness, like grain gathered when its season arrives. The image holds death in view while giving the ending a season and a measure.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The grave is not pictured only as an interruption; here it is also a gathering at ripeness.

THE ROOT

גָּדִישׁ

gādīsh

GROWS FROM

גדשׁ

To heap up or pile together.

“shock” in this verse is gādīsh. The Hebrew word is a heap or stack of grain, gathered into one mass at harvest. That makes the comparison more than a picture of old age: the ending is imagined as a life gathered into fullness, while the grave remains plainly in view.

ALSO GROWS

gādīsh: A stack or heap of grain.

גָּדִישׁ

This is the word translated “shock”; it makes the harvest image a gathered bundle, not a single stalk.

gādaš: To heap up or pile.

גָּדַשׁ

The verb carries the root’s gathering-together sense into the image of grain accumulated for harvest.

THE PATTERN

Scripture uses harvest to picture fullness arriving in its season, with gathering following ripeness.

And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

Psalm 1:3 · KJVFruit appears in its season, as the grain in Job’s image reaches the time for gathering.

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

Ecclesiastes 3:2 · KJVBirth, death, planting, and uprooting are all placed within their appointed times.

But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.

Mark 4:29 · KJVThe harvest comes when the fruit has reached its fullness.

THE THREAD

If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.

Exodus 22:6 · KJV

The same Hebrew word, ⁨גָּדִישׁ⁩ (gādīsh), names the grain stack in both verses. Job pictures the stack arriving at its season; Exodus shows that a stack can also be consumed by fire, holding ripeness beside the vulnerability of what has been gathered.

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