What Does Proverbs 30:21 Mean in the King James?
For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear:
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
Hebrew says the earth trembles under three conditions and cannot lift a fourth, the hidden image is a world reaching its carrying limit.
THE MEANING
The ground beneath you is shown as responsive: it trembles under conditions that life cannot keep carrying without limit. The count rises from three to four, making the threshold itself the point, the verse opens a list of arrangements that press the world toward upheaval.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that a world can absorb any degree of disorder without consequence.
THE ROOT
רָגְזָה
ragzah
GROWS FROM
רגז
To tremble, quake, or become agitated.
English’s “disquieted” can sound like mild unease, while ragaz names trembling or agitation. Its word-family also describes nations trembling and human trouble, so inner turmoil and earth-shaking unrest share a single root.
ALSO GROWS
yirgezun: Shake or tremble with agitation.
יִרְגְּזוּן
Deuteronomy 2:25 uses this form for nations that tremble; the earth’s unrest and human fear share the same word-family.
rogez: Agitation or distress.
רֹגֶז
Job 14:1 calls human life “full of trouble” with this related noun, linking personal turmoil to the earth’s shaking.
שְׂאֵת
se'et
GROWS FROM
נשא
To lift, carry, or take up.
The word translated “bear” comes from nasa, to lift or carry. The earth’s limit is pictured as a carrying limit: it cannot take up more weight.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: Take something up or carry it.
נָשָׂא
This is the verb beneath “bear,” so the verse pictures the earth as unable to carry further weight.
massa: A load carried or borne.
מַשָּׂא
The burden-word from the same root makes the verse’s carrying image concrete: unrest has weight.
THE PATTERN
The world registers what overwhelms it as visible unrest, trembling, reeling, or groaning.
This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee.The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.THE THREAD
Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.The Hebrew noun רֹגֶז (rogez, turmoil) in Job 14:1 grows from the same root ר-ג-ז as Proverbs’ “disquieted.” English separates human trouble from the earth’s shaking; the Hebrew word-family lets them share one field of agitation.
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