What Does Job 8:14 Mean in the King James?

Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider’s web.

Job 8:14 · 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 Hebrew pictures trust as a spider’s house, making the shelter beneath hope the measure of whether it can stand.

THE MEANING

This verse names the danger of placing confidence in a shelter that cannot bear it. Hope can feel like refuge, yet when its support is as fragile as a spider’s dwelling, the trust itself gives way.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the assumption that strong confidence can compensate for fragile support.

THE ROOT

מִבְטָחוֹ

mivtaḥo

GROWS FROM

בָּטַח

bāṭaḥ

to trust, feel secure, be confident

The word ⁨מִבְטָחוֹ⁩ (mivtaḥo, his trust or security) comes from ⁨בָּטַח⁩ (bāṭaḥ, to trust or feel secure). The phrase ⁨בֵּית עַכָּבִישׁ⁩ (bêt ʿakkāḇîš, a spider’s house) makes the support beneath that confidence visible: feeling secure cannot make a fragile refuge hold.

ALSO GROWS

mivṭāḥ: security, refuge, confidence

מִבְטָח

This noun makes trust concrete as a place or condition of security; the verse measures that security by the shelter it provides.

bāṭûaḥ: secure, safe, confident

בָּטוּחַ

This adjective names the felt state of being secure; the verse tests whether that feeling rests on something that can hold.

THE PATTERN

Confidence takes its shape from the support beneath it; what cannot bear weight cannot secure trust.

He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand: he shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure.

Job 8:15 · KJVThe next verse extends the image: leaning on a shelter cannot make it stand when its structure is weak.

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.

Psalm 20:7 · KJVThe verse contrasts confidence placed in military strength with trust grounded elsewhere.

And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

Matthew 7:26-27 · KJVA house built on unstable ground cannot withstand what bears against it, just as a fragile shelter cannot support trust.

THE THREAD

What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.

Psalm 56:3 · KJV

Job’s ⁨מִבְטָחוֹ⁩ (mivtaḥo, his trust or security) and the psalm’s ⁨אֶבְטָח⁩ (ʾevṭāḥ, I will trust) share the root ⁨בָּטַח⁩ (bāṭaḥ, to trust or feel secure). The psalm places that trust in God amid fear, while Job’s image exposes the fragility of the shelter holding confidence.

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