Featured Is this an error in the KJV?

Welcome to the Baptist Board.

Forgive me for disagreeing with you the first time we meet, but you are mistaken about "Zoe Aionious." It is an idiom that means "eternal life." (P. S. It's actually zoe aionios, singular. Aionious would be plural. And it's usually in the accusative case.)

 

Wow, that was quick!

 

Usually, obsession with a topic = conviction.

 

I’ve found a few more places since yesterday with different takes on this.


Job 17:6 "He hath made me also a byword of the people; and aforetime I was as a tabret."

“A byword”: This refers to shame, reproach, and a reputation that is extremely bad (compare Deut. 28:37; Psalm 69:11).

“Tabret”: The most disdainful act a person could commit to heap scorn and shame on someone as a wicked and unworthy person. Job’s friends were aiding him in getting such a reputation (verses 7-8).

Job became a byword for his generation for the terrible persecutions he endured. He is still a byword today to all who read the Bible. We are all amazed how Job stayed faithful to God through such terrible trials. All of us have a tendency to measure our trials with the trials of Job. "Tabret" in the verse here, means smiting, or contempt.

Another is:

Job 17:6. He hath made me also a byword of the people Either Eliphaz, or God; for whatsoever befell him, whether more immediately by the hand of God, or by any instrument, the ascribes it to him, as being suffered in Providence to befall him; as when he became a byword or proverb to the people in common, to whom an example might be set by one or more of Job's friends.

And another:

Job 17:6 [KJV] Job says in his plight [a person scorned, spit at] that he was once as a tabret. He was once an object of beauty unto Adonai [the LORD]. We read in chapter 17 that Job reflects on his once right-standing with Adonai that he was a tabret before all his intense suffering began. Job was a worshiper of the one true God [Yahweh]

(Here it looks to mean both spit and instrument, which topeth is used for both from what I understand so far).

One last one:

So, Job is a byword to people. That is, he’s become a proverb of suffering to those who know of him. He is the classic case of one who suffers.

And then Job says that he’s a tabret. That word appears once in the Old Testament and that’s of course right here. There are two possibilities as to what this word means.

First, it could be something into which people would spit. And that idea is bolstered by the fact that aforetime in verse 6 is the word for face. So, then Job is saying that he’s a proverb of suffering – and in fact, people are spitting in his face, as it were.

The other possibility as to what this word tabret means as we have it in the KJV is that it’s a small drum. And what do people do with drums? They beat them. And so, if that’s what this word means, then Job is saying that people are beating on him, so to speak.

Either way, Job is lamenting the fact that people are not being kind to him. They’re using him as a proverbial example of one who suffers. And then in light of that they’re either beating on him or spitting on him.

Others reference “topeth” as abhorrence or contempt.
Without looking at all the angles, I wouldn’t be so quick to call it an error.
The Greek word for tabret can have more than one meaning.

 

What is your source for this definition? Thanks.

 

Thanks. Some online dictionaries give as an obsolete meaning as a person who plays on the tabor or tabret. I wondered if OED might have something more.

 

Merriam-Webster:

tabor: a small drum with one head of soft calfskin used to accompany a pipe or fife played by the same person
tabret: a small tabor, called also taborin



according to the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary:

tabor (also tabourin, tabret)

• The earlier name of the drum;
in later use, a small kind of drum (esp. since the introduction of the name drum in the 16th cent.)

• the drummer (with his drum)


• to perform upon or beat the tabor; to drum

• (figurative) to beat as upon a tabor; to drum. [OED cites to KJB, Nahum 2:7, as I did above]

• to beat, thump (anything); to thrash

 

Reminder: when a figurative use not related to joyousness was shown, it was met with a dismissive response:

 

To clarify a bit on what I wrote above. A couple of places I noticed the two definitions were Collins and Dictionary.com.

tabret, noun.

a small tabor.
Obsolete. a person who plays upon this instrument.​