What Does Ecclesiastes 9:14 Mean in the King James?
There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it:
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The king’s power takes the shape of a circle closing around a city too small to defend itself.
THE MEANING
A small place with few defenders stands before a force that surrounds it and builds against it. When pressure closes in from every side, the threat can feel larger than the place’s capacity. The verse holds that pressure without yet naming the outcome.
THE ROOT
וְסָבַב
vesavav
GROWS FROM
סבב
sabab
to turn around, go around, or surround
“besieged” in this verse is vesavav. English gives this a military label, while the Hebrew describes the king going around the city: the threat is a circle made by movement. The city is small within it, and the king’s force is all around it.
ALSO GROWS
saviv: around; surrounding
סָבִיב
This form makes the shared image plain: the city is enclosed on every side.
sevivot: surroundings; environs
סְבִיבוֹת
The same root names the space around something, showing how the king turns the city’s surroundings into part of the siege.
THE PATTERN
Being surrounded can mean danger or protection; the circle’s meaning depends on what holds it.
For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.THE THREAD
The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.The phrase “round about” uses סָבִיב (saviv), from the same סבב (sabab, “surround”) root as “besieged” here. The circle that signals threat in Ecclesiastes can also be the circle of shelter around a person.
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