What Does Job 5:5 Mean in the King James?
Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.
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 verb behind “swalloweth up” also means “pant after,” so the verse pictures possession being consumed as an appetite in pursuit.
THE MEANING
Your gathered provision can be eaten by those who hunger, reached even from among thorns. What remains can be consumed by those who pursue it, leaving possession exposed rather than absolute.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that what you gather is secure simply because it is yours is undone: hunger can reach it, and another can take what remains.
THE ROOT
שָׁאַף
sha'af
GROWS FROM
שׁאף
sha'af
To pant or gasp after; to pursue eagerly and consume.
The verb translated “swalloweth” carries the image of panting pursuit. Beside the hungry eating the harvest, it makes the taking of wealth feel like appetite closing in.
ALSO GROWS
ha-sho'afim: Those who pant after or greedily pursue
הַשֹּׁאֲפִים
Amos uses this form for those who pant after the dust on the poor’s head, linking the taking here with predatory pursuit.
esh'af: I pant, gasp, or devour
אֶשְׁאַף
Isaiah uses the same root in a word rendered “devour,” carrying the overlap between eager pursuit and consumption.
חֵילָם
cheilam
GROWS FROM
חיל
chayil
Strength, force, capacity; by extension, wealth or an army.
The word translated “substance” can also name strength, force, or wealth. What is consumed is not only a store of goods but accumulated capacity in material form.
ALSO GROWS
chayil: Strength, force, or an army
חַיִל
This branch makes the substance in Job sound like concentrated strength, something that can be seized and spent.
eshet chayil: A woman of strength or valor
אֵשֶׁת־חַיִל
Proverbs uses the same word for a person’s capability, showing that this root can name strength embodied as well as wealth possessed.
קָצִיר
qatsir
GROWS FROM
קצר
qatsar
To reap or cut short.
A harvest is what has been cut from its source and gathered. This root also carries the sense of shortness, so even abundance bears the mark of something severed and finite.
ALSO GROWS
qatsar: To reap or cut down
קָצַר
The verb names the cutting that makes a harvest, showing that what can be gathered can also be taken away.
qotser: Shortness
קֹצֶר
This noun appears in the phrase “shortness of spirit” in Exodus 6:9, connecting the harvest root with what is cut short.
THE PATTERN
What is amassed remains vulnerable to loss, consumption, or transfer beyond the gatherer’s control.
Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?THE THREAD
That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name:The Hebrew verb שָׁאַף (sha’af), “pant after,” links Job’s “swalloweth up” with Amos’s “pant after.” The shared root lets consumption carry the feel of acquisitive pursuit: wealth is not merely transferred but hungrily drawn in.
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