What Does Ezekiel 19:1 Mean?

And you, lift up a lament over the lifted ones of Israel.

Ezekiel 19:1 · SDV

Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.

Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

THE KEY

“Take up” a lament and “princes” share the root ⁨נשׂא⁩: the lament is lifted for the lifted ones.

THE MEANING

You are given a lament to raise over Israel’s princes. Their rank and their place inside grief occupy the same line: being elevated does not put anyone beyond mourning.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

A title of rank shields a ruler from being named in grief.

THE ROOT

שָׂא

śāʾ

GROWS FROM

נשׂא

nśʾ

to lift, carry, or bear

“lift up” in this verse is śāʾ. The command to “take up” and the word for “princes” share this root. Hebrew holds the lifted lament and the elevated leaders together: the ones raised in rank become the ones toward whom the lament is lifted.

ALSO GROWS

nāśāʾ: to lift, carry, or bear

נָשָׂא

This is the verb behind “take up”; it makes the lament something carried or raised.

nāśîʾ: prince, chief; one elevated

נָשִׂיא

This is the singular form behind “princes,” linking their rank to the same root as the act of lifting.

nōśēʾ ʿāwōn: bearing crookedness

נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן

The root can also describe bearing what is heavy; it adds weight to the verse’s picture of those elevated now being held within lament.

THE PATTERN

Those raised to a place of power remain within the reach of being brought low.

The LORD strips, and makes rich; he lays low, and lifts high.

1 Samuel 2:7 · SDVThe verse places being brought low and lifted up within the same movement.

He has pulled the mighty down from their seats, and lifted up the low.

Luke 1:52 · SDVThe mighty are lowered while those of low degree are raised.

For God is the judge. This one he brings low, and this one he lifts.

Psalm 75:7 · SDVA person’s position can change from being set up to being brought down.

THE THREAD

Yet within three days Pharaoh shall lift up your head, and return you to your stand, and you shall give Pharaoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner, when you were his cupbearer.

Genesis 40:13 · SDV

“Lift up” there uses ⁨נשׂא⁩, the same root behind “take up” and “princes” here. In Genesis the root raises someone back to his place; in Ezekiel, those raised in rank are the ones for whom lament is lifted.

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