What Does Ezekiel 21:10 Mean in the King James?
It is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter: should we then make mirth? it contemneth the rod of my son, as every tree.
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 blade flashes like lightning on its way to slaughter; its brightness is part of the threat, not a reason to rejoice.
THE MEANING
The blade is sharpened for slaughter and polished until it flashes; its gleam comes with the threat, not apart from it. The question about making mirth reaches you while the weapon is already prepared. Even “the rod of my son” is contemned like every tree.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a weapon’s gleam, or rejoicing around it, changes what it has been sharpened to do.
THE ROOT
טְבֹחַ טֶבַח
ṭəvōaḥ ṭevaḥ
GROWS FROM
טבח
ṭ-b-ḥ
To slaughter or butcher; by extension, to prepare meat.
Beneath “make a sore slaughter,” the Hebrew repeats the same root as action and object: literally, “slaughter a slaughter.” The repetition keeps the blade’s purpose concrete, in the language of butchering flesh.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāvaḥ: To kill an animal for meat.
טָבַח
This is the action named by the repeated root in the verse.
ṭabbāḥ: A person who prepares meat.
טַבָּח
The root’s word family keeps slaughter grounded in the handling of flesh.
miṭbāḥ: A place where food is prepared.
מִטְבָּח
The same word family reaches from slaughtering to preparing meat, making the sword’s purpose bodily and tangible.
בָּרָק
bāraq
GROWS FROM
ברק
b-r-q
To flash or gleam; a flash of lightning.
The word rendered “glitter” carries the sense of a sudden flash, like lightning. Here the blade’s brightness belongs to a weapon made ready for slaughter: its flash reveals the danger rather than making it harmless.
ALSO GROWS
bāraq: Lightning; a sudden flash.
בָּרָק
The sword’s glitter is described with the same word family as lightning’s flash.
bāraq: To gleam or flash brightly.
בָּרַק
This verb shows that the blade’s brightness is an active flash, not merely decoration.
THE PATTERN
Celebration or brightness cannot change the destructive force already present.
And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die.They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.THE THREAD
And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the ruler of his house, Bring these men home, and slay, and make ready; for these men shall dine with me at noon.Genesis repeats the טבח (ṭ-b-ḥ, “slaughter”) root in the command “slay, and make ready,” the same doubled root Ezekiel uses for “slaughter a slaughter.” There it prepares meat for a meal; here it names the sword’s purpose, keeping the language of slaughter concrete.
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