What Does Ezekiel 27:10 Mean?
Persia, Lud, and Put were in your army, your men of battle; they hung shield and helmet in you, and set out your adornment.
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
They of Persia and of Lud and of Phut were in thine army, thy men of war: they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they set forth thy comeliness.THE KEY
The shields and helmets are Tyre’s ornaments: its splendor is the visible display of the force gathered within it.
THE MEANING
The verse shows a city’s beauty being furnished by the armed people and equipment gathered inside it. Its splendor is not separate from that military display; the armor is what makes the splendor visible. This image speaks now wherever collective force becomes public prestige.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that a city’s magnificence belongs to the city alone; here, its splendor is made visible by the strength of others.
THE ROOT
הדרך
hadarek
GROWS FROM
הדר
Splendor, honor, or majesty; visible dignity.
“set out your adornment” in this verse is hadarek. “Comeliness” can sound like personal attractiveness, but hadar also names public honor and majesty. Here that splendor takes the form of armor displayed within the city: beauty is the visible face of organized force.
ALSO GROWS
honour: Hadar is rendered “honour” alongside “glory” in Psalm 8:5.
The shared word shows that Tyre’s comeliness carries the sense of public dignity, not only attractiveness.
goodly: In Leviticus 23:40, hadar describes the “goodly trees.”
The word can describe visible excellence in nature as well as civic splendor; in this verse, that excellence is displayed through shields and helmets.
חילך
cheilekh
GROWS FROM
חיל
Strength, capacity, force; by extension, army, valor, or wealth.
The word for Tyre’s army belongs to a root that also names valor and wealth. Its armed force is therefore part of the city’s capacity and prestige, as well as its defense.
ALSO GROWS
valor: The same root describes the capable woman called “virtuous” in Proverbs 31:10.
The army’s strength belongs to a wider sense of capability and force.
wealth: The root is used for “wealth” in Deuteronomy 8:18.
The word’s range brings military power and material capacity into the same frame.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes splendor visible through what is worn, carried, crowned, or displayed.
And you make him a little short of God, and you crown him with weight and splendor.Strength and splendor are her clothing, and she laughs toward the latter day.But I say to you, not even Solomon in all his weight was wrapped as one of these.THE THREAD
And you make him a little short of God, and you crown him with weight and splendor.The word rendered “comeliness” here is the same root translated “honour” in Psalm 8:5. That shared word links Tyre’s displayed splendor with the dignity pictured as a crown.
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