What Does Job 9:17 Mean in the King James?
For he breaketh me with a tempest, and multiplieth my wounds without cause.
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 translated “breaketh” is the same rare verb used for the bruising of the head and heel in Genesis 3:15, making Job’s tempest a force that crushes.
THE MEANING
The verse gives language to pain that feels overwhelming, keeps multiplying, and has no cause the sufferer can see. It lets that pain be named plainly, without turning it into proof of guilt or a lesson that makes it easier to bear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that suffering itself proves the sufferer is guilty or deserves it: the wounds here multiply “without cause.”
THE ROOT
יְשׁוּפֵנִי
yeshuphni
GROWS FROM
שׁוּף
to bruise or crush
English “breaketh” can sound like general damage; the Hebrew verb carries the force of a bodily blow. The same verb appears twice in Genesis 3:15, where injury is struck against both head and heel.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuphkha: he will bruise you
יְשׁוּפְךָ
Genesis 3:15 uses this form for the blow against the serpent’s head, giving the root a concrete, striking force.
teshuphennu: you will bruise him
תְּשׁוּפֶנּוּ
The same verse uses this form for the blow to the heel; alongside Job’s crushing, it shows the root naming real injury.
THE PATTERN
Suffering is real without serving as proof that the sufferer is guilty or deserves it.
Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?THE THREAD
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.Job’s יְשׁוּפֵנִי (yeshuphni, “he crushes me”) shares the root שׁוּף (shuph, “to bruise or crush”) with the two injury verbs in this verse. That shared verb gives “breaketh” the force of a bodily blow, not just the passing image of a storm.
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