The Meaning of Job 6:27 Explained

Job 6:27

KJV: Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and ye dig a pit for your friend.

YLT: Anger on the fatherless ye cause to fall, And are strange to your friend.

Darby: Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and dig a pit for your friend.

ASV: Yea, ye would cast lots upon the fatherless, And make merchandise of your friend.

KJV Reverse Interlinear

Yea, ye overwhelm  the fatherless,  and ye dig  [a pit] for your friend. 

What does Job 6:27 Mean?

Context Summary

Job 6:1-30 - "a Deceitful Brook"
The burden of Job's complaint is the ill-treatment meted out by his friends. They had accused him of speaking rashly, but they had not measured the greatness of his pain, Job 6:4, or they would have seen it to be as natural as the braying and lowing of hungry and suffering beasts, Job 6:5. A man would not take insipid food without complaint; how much more reason had he to complain whose tears were his meat day and night, Job 6:6-7! So bitter were his pains that he would welcome death, and exult in the throes of dissolution, Job 6:8-10. It could hardly be otherwise than that he should succumb, since he had only the ordinary strength of mortals, and both strength and wisdom were exhausted, Job 6:11-13.
Job next characterizes the assistance of his friends as winter brooks, turbid with melted ice and snow, which bitterly disappoint the travelers who had hoped to find water, and perish beside the dry heaps of stones, Job 6:17. They had found fault with his words, which, in the circumstances, were not a true index to his heart, Job 6:26; but a look into his face would have sufficed to attest his innocence of the sin of which they accused him, Job 6:28-30.
From these complaints of faithlessness and disappointment we turn to Him who, having been made perfect through suffering, has become "the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him," Hebrews 5:9. [source]

Chapter Summary: Job 6

1  Job shows that his complaints are not causeless
8  He wishes for death, wherein he is assured of comfort
14  He reproves his friends of unkindness

What do the individual words in Job 6:27 mean?

Yes - and the fatherless you overwhelm and you barter away your friend
אַף־ עַל־ יָת֥וֹם תַּפִּ֑ילוּ וְ֝תִכְר֗וּ עַל־ רֵֽיעֲכֶֽם

אַף־  Yes 
Parse: Conjunction
Root: אַף  
Sense: also, yea, though, so much the more adv.
עַל־  - 
Parse: Preposition
Root: עַל 
Sense: upon, on the ground of, according to, on account of, on behalf of, concerning, beside, in addition to, together with, beyond, above, over, by, on to, towards, to, against.
יָת֥וֹם  and  the  fatherless 
Parse: Noun, masculine singular
Root: יָתֹום  
Sense: an orphan, fatherless.
תַּפִּ֑ילוּ  you  overwhelm 
Parse: Verb, Hifil, Imperfect, second person masculine plural
Root: נָפַל  
Sense: to fall, lie, be cast down, fail.
וְ֝תִכְר֗וּ  and  you  barter 
Parse: Conjunctive waw, Verb, Qal, Conjunctive imperfect, second person masculine plural
Root: כּוּר 
Sense: to dig, excavate, dig through.
עַל־  away 
Parse: Preposition
Root: עַל 
Sense: upon, on the ground of, according to, on account of, on behalf of, concerning, beside, in addition to, together with, beyond, above, over, by, on to, towards, to, against.
רֵֽיעֲכֶֽם  your  friend 
Parse: Noun, masculine singular construct, second person masculine plural
Root: רֵעַ  
Sense: friend, companion, fellow, another person.