What Does Ezra 3:13 Mean?
So that the people could not tell apart the voice of the shout of joy from the voice of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard afar off.
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
So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.THE KEY
A new beginning can make grief and joy rise together so completely that neither sound can be separated from the other.
THE MEANING
A beginning can carry loss and relief in the same moment. Here, joy does not erase what is mourned, and grief does not make the joy unreal; both are audible in one shared cry.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that real joy requires grief to be over, or that grief proves joy is absent. Here both are present in the same people at the same time.
THE ROOT
מַכִּירִים
makkirim
GROWS FROM
נכר
n-k-r
To recognize or identify as distinct; in related forms, to treat as foreign.
“tell apart” in this verse is makkirim. The word translated “discern” means recognizing one thing as distinct from another. The same consonants form נָכְרִי (nokhri), “stranger” or “foreigner,” linking recognition with the sense of what is unfamiliar; here, the crowd cannot identify where the sound of joy ends and weeping begins.
ALSO GROWS
hikkir: Recognize, identify.
הִכִּיר
This verb shows that discerning is a matter of recognizing what is distinct, exactly what the people cannot do with the two sounds.
nokhri: Stranger, foreigner.
נָכְרִי
The same root family connects recognition with foreignness, sharpening the image of sounds whose emotional identities have become hard to tell apart.
תְּרוּעָה
teru'ah
GROWS FROM
רוע
r-w-ʿ
To raise a loud cry or shout.
“shout of joy” in this verse is teru'ah. The verse names a תְּרוּעָה (teru’ah), then uses the related verb מְרִיעִים (meri’im), “shouting.” The root can carry a jubilant cry or an alarm, so the shout itself does not hold only one emotional shade; here, joy and grief fill the same public sound.
ALSO GROWS
ruaʿ: To shout, raise a cry.
רוּעַ
This verbal root is the action behind the crowd’s loud collective sound.
meri'im: Shouting, raising a cry.
מְרִיעִים
This form appears in the verse itself, turning the named shout into the people’s ongoing action.
THE PATTERN
At the threshold of restoration, grief and joy can sound together before either feeling gives way.
But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the fathers, the old men, who had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a great voice, and many raised up their voices in a shout of joy.Those who sow in tears reap in a ringing cry.Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and wail, but the world will rejoice; you will be pained, but your pain will become joy.THE THREAD
A Psalm of praise. Shout to the LORD, all the earth.Ezra’s “shouted” and Psalm’s “make a joyful noise” come from the same root, רוע (ruaʿ), “to raise a cry.” The shared root lets the crowd’s sound remain one shout even when joy and grief are both inside it.
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