What Does Ezra 9:3 Mean?
When I heard this word, I tore my garment and my robe, and pulled out the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down stunned.
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 when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied.THE KEY
The Hebrew word translated “astonied” carries desolation inside astonishment: the shock empties the person who receives it.
THE MEANING
A devastating report can leave you inwardly desolate before you have words for what it means. Grief takes visible form in the body: the covering is torn, the hair of your head and beard is pulled away, and composure collapses.
THE ROOT
מְשׁוֹמֵם
meshōmēm
GROWS FROM
שׁ־מ־ם
sh-m-m
To be desolate, devastated, or appalled.
“stunned” in this verse is meshōmēm. The word for astonishment belongs to the same root as desolation. This is more than surprise: the report leaves the one who hears it inwardly laid waste.
ALSO GROWS
shemāmāh: Desolation or wasteland.
שְׁמָמָה
This noun makes the root’s image concrete: astonishment here has the emptiness of a place left desolate.
shamem: To be desolate or appalled.
שָׁמֵם
This verb shares the root of “astonied,” joining stunned shock with devastation.
קָרַעְתִּי
qāraʿtî
GROWS FROM
ק־ר־ע
q-r-ʿ
To tear, rend, or split open.
“tore” in this verse is qāraʿtî. The same verb names the tearing of a garment and the act of splitting something open. The tear in what covers him gives grief a visible form, while the word for his shock names the desolation within.
ALSO GROWS
qeriah: Rending or tearing.
קְרִיעָה
This noun carries the same tearing action into a form that can name the visible rupture.
qaruaʿ: Torn or ripped open.
קָרוּעַ
This related form describes the state left by the action Ezra performs: what covered him is now torn.
THE PATTERN
When devastation overwhelms a person, grief appears in bodily gestures rather than staying hidden within.
And Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.Then Job rose up, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell to the ground, and bowed down.Jesus wept.THE THREAD
And Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.The same Hebrew verb, qaraʿ (קרע), describes the torn garments in both verses. That shared root lets the tear in the clothing carry grief’s visible rupture across both scenes.
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