What Does Job 7:17 Mean in the King James?
What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?
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 for “magnify” means to make great, so Job asks why a fragile mortal is raised into the center of God’s attention.
THE MEANING
You can ask why your mortal, vulnerable life receives such focused regard from God. Here that regard feels double-edged: to be held in divine attention is also to be examined so continually that the attention itself can become a burden.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that divine attention always feels like comfort: in pain, the same regard that grants a person significance can feel like scrutiny.
THE ROOT
תגדלנו
tagdelennu
GROWS FROM
גדל
To grow or become great; to make great.
“magnify” in this verse is tagdelennu. The verb carries the sense of making someone great, not simply looking closely at them. Job’s question holds a tension: why is a mortal made so significant as to receive God’s concentrated attention?
ALSO GROWS
gadol: Great, large
גָּדוֹל
The adjective makes the root’s sense of enlarged scale explicit: Job asks why the mortal is made great.
migdal: Tower
מִגְדָּל
A tower rises visibly above its surroundings, echoing the root’s movement toward greatness.
gedullah: Greatness, majesty
גְּדֻלָּה
This branch names the status or magnitude that Job wonders why a mortal receives.
אֱנוֹשׁ
enosh
GROWS FROM
אנש
Associated with weakness, frailty, or sickness; enosh names mortal humanity.
“man” in this verse is enosh. Job uses enosh, a word that brings mortal frailty into focus. Beside the root גדל (gadal, to make great), it sharpens the question: why is the fragile human made the object of such weighty attention?
ALSO GROWS
enosh: Mortal, human being
אֱנוֹשׁ
This is the word in Job’s question; it presents the person as finite and vulnerable.
anush: Grievously sick, incurable
אָנֻשׁ
This related form preserves the root’s association with human frailty, intensifying the contrast with being made great.
THE PATTERN
Scripture holds human smallness and divine attention together as both wonder and anguish.
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?LORD, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?THE THREAD
I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.Job’s “magnify” and the psalm’s “magnified” share the Hebrew root גדל (gadal, to grow or make great). The psalm uses that same verb for God raising the word to extraordinary importance, showing the scale carried by Job’s question about a mortal receiving God’s attention.
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