What Does Ezra 4:7 Mean?
And in the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in the Aramaic tongue, and made plain in the Aramaic tongue.
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
And in the days of Artaxerxes wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions, unto Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in the Syrian tongue, and interpreted in the Syrian tongue.THE KEY
The verse reveals a message taking shape through joined voices, inscription, and interpretation.
THE MEANING
You encounter communication as a chain: companions join in the address, a letter takes written form, and its language is named again as it is interpreted. The Aramaic wording names Aramaic at both stages, making visible how meaning travels through words and their rendering.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A message is complete once it is written.
THE ROOT
מתרגם
meturgam
GROWS FROM
תרגם
T-R-G-M
Translate or interpret.
“interpreted, translated” in this verse is meturgam. The verse names interpretation separately from writing, making the rendering of the message part of its communication. This word family includes both the translation and the interpreter, so the written form is only one link in the message’s passage.
ALSO GROWS
targum: Translation or interpretation.
תרגום
It names the rendered message as its own form, echoing the verse’s explicit attention to interpretation.
meturgeman: Interpreter or translator.
מתורגמן
It names the person who makes a message intelligible across languages.
כְּתִיב
ketiv
GROWS FROM
כתב
K-T-B
Write or inscribe.
The writing root echoes in “the writing of the letter was written,” placing the act beside its result. The same seed holds both inscription and the written message, a connection obscured by the English repetition.
ALSO GROWS
katav: To write.
כָּתַב
This verbal form names the act that gives the letter its written shape.
mikhtav: A letter or written message.
מִכְתָּב
It shows the written object growing from the same root as the act of writing.
חבריהון
ḥavrayhon
GROWS FROM
חבר
Ḥ-B-R
Join, connect, or associate.
“companions, associates” in this verse is ḥavrayhon. The companions are named from a root of joining, so the letter’s voice is collective before it is written. The root lets the group register as people linked in an association, not merely as a list of names.
ALSO GROWS
ḥaver: Companion or associate.
חָבֵר
It shows the root’s connection between joining and the people who act together in the verse.
ḥibbur: Joining, connection, or composition.
חִבּוּר
It extends the joining in “companions” to the collective act that produces the letter.
THE PATTERN
A message reaches others when its written form is joined to an intelligible rendering.
So they read aloud from the scroll of the instruction of God, spread open, and set the sense in place, and caused the people to perceive in the reading.And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon the tablets, so that the one who calls it out may run.So also you, unless you give through the tongue a word with a clear sign, how shall what is spoken be known? For you will be speaking into the air.THE THREAD
So they read aloud from the scroll of the instruction of God, spread open, and set the sense in place, and caused the people to perceive in the reading.Ezra places written words and interpretation together in one sentence. Nehemiah opens the same structure into reading, sense, and understanding, showing reception as a linked act.
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