What Does Ezekiel 27:7 Mean?
Fine linen woven with color from Egypt was spread as your sail, lifted high as a banner; blue and purple from the coastlands of Elishah was your covering.
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
Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “sail” grows from “spread out”: the vessel’s textile is not only its covering, but the opened surface that carries it forward.
THE MEANING
The verse shows a vessel dressed in fine Egyptian linen and the blue and purple of Elishah. Its sail is cloth spread open for movement, while its colors form the covering others see. Here, textile is both working surface and visible splendor.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that fine outward appearance is merely decorative: its linen sail also serves a practical purpose.
THE ROOT
מִפְרָשׂ
mifrās
GROWS FROM
פרשׂ
To spread out or stretch out.
“spread” in this verse is mifrās. The word for sail grows from the action of spreading out. A sail is cloth opened into a working surface; the verse places that surface alongside the vessel’s colored covering, joining movement with visible splendor.
ALSO GROWS
pāras: To spread out or stretch out.
פָּרַשׂ
This verb names the action contained in the sail’s name: cloth spread open.
pōrēs: Spreading or one who spreads.
פֹּרֵשׂ
This participle keeps the same action in motion, showing the sail as a surface held open rather than merely a piece of cloth.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents coverings as active surfaces that shelter what is within and make its character visible.
He wraps himself in light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a curtain.He sits upon the circle of the earth, and its settlers are like grasshoppers; he stretches out the heavens like a thin cloth, and stretches them out like a tent to settle in.And it is given to her to be wrapped in fine linen, bright and clean, for the fine linen is the alignments of the set-apart ones.THE THREAD
He spread a cloud for a covering, and fire to shine in the night.The verb “spread” here shares the root פרשׂ (pāras, spread out) with Ezekiel’s word for “sail.” One root names both a sail spread open over a vessel and a cloud spread out as its covering.
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