What Does Ezekiel 26:2 Mean?
Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken, the gate of the peoples. She has turned toward me. I will be filled. Now she is dried out.
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.
King James wording
King James Version
Son of man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste:THE KEY
The city whose name carries שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness), Yerushalayim (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם), is called broken, and Tyre mistakes its loss for the source of her own fullness.
THE MEANING
Tyre, Tzor (צֹר, tsor, rock), faces Jerusalem, whose name carries wholeness, and reads the broken gates as her opening. The verse exposes a present reflex: another’s collapse can look like the source of one’s own security and plenty. Tyre’s “I shall be replenished” makes that hunger audible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that someone else’s collapse can guarantee your fullness; Tyre’s confident claim is tied to another’s ruin, not proof that the ruin will satisfy.
THE ROOT
אִמָּלְאָה
ʾimmālʾāh
GROWS FROM
מלא
m-l-ʾ
To be full; to fill.
“I will be filled” in this verse is ʾimmālʾāh. Tyre’s “I shall be replenished” comes from a root that moves between filling and being full. Jerusalem’s emptied place is treated as what will make Tyre full.
ALSO GROWS
male: Full, filled.
מָלֵא
This names the state Tyre imagines reaching through Jerusalem’s loss.
mille: To fill, make full.
מִלֵּא
This active form gives voice to the replenishment Tyre expects.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole, complete, sound.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim carries שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness) in its name, and the verse places that name beside broken gates. The name sharpens the contrast: Tyre wants to turn another’s brokenness into her own fullness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, completeness.
שָׁלוֹם
This is the wholeness carried in Jerusalem’s name, set against the city’s broken gates.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
The branch makes the contrast between Jerusalem’s name and the ruin Tyre sees especially clear.
נִשְׁבְּרָה
nishberah
GROWS FROM
שבר
sh-b-r
To break, shatter, fracture.
“is broken” in this verse is nishberah. The word comes from a family that names both breaking and a fracture or breach. With gates beside it, brokenness becomes breached access, and Tyre reads that breach as an opening for herself.
ALSO GROWS
shavar: To break, shatter.
שָׁבַר
This verb carries the force behind the brokenness Tyre celebrates.
shever: A break, fracture, breach.
שֶׁבֶר
This noun makes the breach in Jerusalem’s access points audible within the same root family.
THE PATTERN
Another’s devastation cannot be made into neutral profit; rejoicing over it exposes a rupture in shared life.
Whoever mocks the poor reproaches his Maker, and he who is glad at calamities does not come away clear.And do not gaze upon the day of your brother, the day he became a foreigner. Do not rejoice over the children of Judah on the day they lost their way. Do not make your mouth large in the day of the narrow place.If one limb aches, all the limbs ache with it, and if one is clothed in weight, all of them rejoice with it.THE THREAD
From the abundance of your trade they have filled the inside of you with violence, and you have missed the mark; therefore I will throw you from the mountain of God as something common, and I will cause you to lose the way, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.The same root מלא (m-l-ʾ, to fill or be full) voices Tyre’s hoped-for replenishment here and appears again when violence fills her midst. The later verse makes the contents of that fullness visible: the gain Tyre imagines has violence at its center.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us