What Does Ezekiel 27:2 Mean?
Now, son of man, lift up a lament over Tyre.
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
Now, thou son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus;THE KEY
The lament is a load to be lifted, so grief becomes a message the prophet carries over Tyrus.
THE MEANING
You stand inside the command to lift grief over Tyrus; the lament gives loss a voice before its full contours unfold. The verse holds a city’s stature and vulnerability in the same present moment.
THE ROOT
שָׂא
sa
GROWS FROM
נשא
to lift, carry, or bear
“lift up” in this verse is sa. The Hebrew command is literally “lift a qinah,” so grief is borne into speech. The same root forms massa, “burden” or “oracle,” making the lament a weight that carries a message.
ALSO GROWS
massa: A burden carried; also an utterance borne as a prophetic message.
מַשָּׂא
It shows how the lament can be both a weight and something spoken.
nasi: A person elevated to prominence.
נָשִׂיא
The root’s language of lifting places the lament over a city whose stature is exposed in the chapter that follows.
בֶּן־אָדָם
ben-adam
GROWS FROM
אדם
human, ground-being; the word-family links humanity with adamah, ground or soil
“son of man” in this verse is ben-adam. The address is ben-adam, “son of adam”: the one who carries this lament is named through humanity’s ground-root. The words for human, soil, and red share the same consonants, keeping the address embodied and earthbound.
ALSO GROWS
adamah: Ground, soil.
אֲדָמָה
The shared word-family reveals the ground-root inside “son of man.”
adom: Red, ruddy.
אָדֹם
The same consonants connect the human name with the earth’s coloring.
THE PATTERN
A city’s splendor and security can become the subject of lament when its power is exposed to loss.
They will lift up a lament over you and say to you, How you have perished, you who settle from the seas, praised city that was strong in the sea, she and her settlers, who set their terror upon all who settle in her.Son of man, lift up a lament over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord GOD, You seal the pattern, full of wisdom, and crowned with shining.And the traders of the earth shall weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their cargo any longer.THE THREAD
And you, lift up a lament over the lifted ones of Israel.Ezekiel 19:1 repeats the same Hebrew pair, שָׂא קִינָה (sa qinah, “lift a lamentation”), over Israel’s princes. Here that same carried utterance is directed over Tyrus, linking lament to the exposure of public power.
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