What Does Job 6:16 Mean in the King James?
Which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid:
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
Ice darkens the stream while snow remains concealed in it: what is hidden has not thereby disappeared.
THE MEANING
The stream is darkened by ice, and snow remains concealed in it. The image speaks now: a dark surface can mark concealment, not emptiness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that what is out of sight is gone; here, the snow is hidden in the darkened stream.
THE ROOT
יִתְעַלֶּם
yitʿallem
GROWS FROM
ע־ל־ם
ʿ-l-m
to hide, conceal, or be hidden from sight
“hid” in this verse is yitʿallem. The form pictures the snow as hiding itself. This root can describe both the act of concealment and the state of being hidden, keeping presence distinct from visibility.
ALSO GROWS
heʿlim: hid, concealed
הֶעְלִים
This active form names the act of making something unseen, echoing the snow’s concealment in the stream.
neʿlam: hidden, concealed
נֶעְלָם
This form names the hidden state itself, showing how something can remain present beyond sight.
קֹדְרִים
qoderim
GROWS FROM
ק־ד־ר
q-d-r
to grow dark or gloomy
“blackish” in this verse is qoderim. The word carries more than a color: this root also shades toward gloom and mourning. Ice makes the stream dim to the eye, while the word gives that darkness a somber quality.
ALSO GROWS
qādar: to grow dark, become gloomy
קָדַר
The verbal form describes the change in appearance the verse gives to the iced stream.
qōdēr: darkened, gloomy; associated with mourning
קֹדֵר
This related form lets the stream’s blackness carry a note of sorrow as well as color.
THE PATTERN
A covering can change what is visible while what it conceals remains present.
Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad.THE THREAD
Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?Job’s snow “hides itself” with the Hebrew root ʿ-l-m, and Psalm 10:1 uses that same root for “hidest thyself.” One verse gives concealment a physical form in a darkened stream; the other names the felt experience of hiddenness.
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