What Does Ezekiel 32:16 Mean?
This is the lament with which they shall lament her. The daughters of the nations shall keen for her. They shall lament her, even for Egypt and for all her multitude, says the Lord GOD.
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
This is the lamentation wherewith they shall lament her: the daughters of the nations shall lament her: they shall lament for her, even for Egypt, and for all her multitude, saith the Lord GOD.THE KEY
What seems like Egypt’s roar becomes the subject of a lament the nations can speak aloud.
THE MEANING
Here, Egypt and all her multitude are held in a public cry of grief. The repeated lament gives the daughters of the nations a voice for naming what has fallen. Even what appears immense can become the subject of shared mourning.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that abundance and power make a people untouchable dissolves here: Egypt’s multitude does not shield her from lament.
THE ROOT
תְּקוֹנֵנָה
teqonenah
GROWS FROM
קנן
q-n-n
To chant a dirge; to lament aloud.
The same lamenting verb is repeated through the verse, turning grief into a public, voiced act. English repetition can sound redundant, but here it makes the lament gather force around Egypt and her multitude.
ALSO GROWS
qonenūhā: They lamented her.
קוֹנְנוּהָ
This form names the act directly: the nations give their grief a voice for Egypt.
qonen: To lament or chant a dirge.
קוֹנֵן
The verb’s dirge-like sense shows that this is voiced mourning, not grief left unnamed.
הֲמוֹנָהּ
hamonah
GROWS FROM
המה
h-m-h
To roar, murmur, or be tumultuous.
The word for Egypt’s multitude carries an echo of noise and tumult, so the crowd is more than a count of people. The vastness that might sound like power is now surrounded by the nations’ lament.
ALSO GROWS
hamah: To roar or murmur.
הָמָה
This verb reveals the sound within “multitude”: a crowd can be heard as a roar.
hamon: A multitude, abundance, or noisy crowd.
הָמוֹן
The verse uses this word for all that belongs to Egypt’s vast multitude, now named within the lament.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitsrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
tz-r-r
To bind in, press in, or confine; צַר (tzar) means narrow or constricting.
Mitsrayim carries the image of constriction: the two narrows. In this verse, that constriction is not hidden behind Egypt’s multitude; it is named aloud in a lament that holds the fall in view.
ALSO GROWS
tzar: Narrow, tight, or constricting.
צַר
This gives the name Egypt its image of narrowness, the condition the verse places under lament.
metzar: A narrow place or strait; distress.
מֵצַר
The branch connects constriction with distress, lending another layer to the lament over Mitsrayim.
THE PATTERN
A shared lament gives loss a public voice instead of leaving it concealed.
And David wailed this lament over Saul, and over Jonathan his son.Hear and respond to this word that I lift against you, a lament, house of Israel.Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.THE THREAD
Hear and respond to this word that I lift against you, a lament, house of Israel.Amos uses קִינָה (qinah, a lamentation or dirge), the same lament vocabulary that opens Ezekiel’s verse. Here that public form of grief is spoken over Egypt; Amos turns it toward Israel, showing that no people stands outside the reach of lament.
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