What Does Job 9:26 Mean in the King James?
They are passed away as the swift ships: as the eagle that hasteth to the prey.
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 “passed away” also carries the sense of changing, so the verse’s image of life vanishing holds a second shade: passage into another state.
THE MEANING
Your days pass with the speed of a boat sliding across water and an eagle diving toward its food. What is here now is already moving beyond your grasp.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that life will stay still until you are ready to take it in; its passing is already underway.
THE ROOT
חָלְפוּ
ḥāləp̄û
GROWS FROM
חלף
To pass by or pass on; to shift or change.
The phrase “passed away” carries the sense of departure, while the Hebrew root also appears in words for exchange and renewal. The ships and diving eagle make time feel impossible to hold, while the same root elsewhere describes movement from one state into another.
ALSO GROWS
chalifot: Changes or exchanges of clothing.
חֲלִפוֹת
This form shows the root’s movement as an exchange from one state to another, not only a passing out of sight.
yaḥalifu: They renew or change.
יַחֲלִיפוּ
The same root can describe renewal, adding a sense of transition to the image of passing.
THE PATTERN
Human days pass too quickly to be possessed or presumed upon.
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.THE THREAD
If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.Job 14:14 uses חֲלִיפָתִי (ḥalifati, “my change”), from the same root חלף (ḥ-l-p, “to pass or change”) as “passed away” here. The root holds both time slipping beyond sight and a change still awaited.
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