What Does Ezekiel 21:15 Mean in the King James?
I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may faint, and their ruins be multiplied: ah! it is made bright, it is wrapped up for the slaughter.
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 sword reaches beyond the gates: the heart melts within, while stumbling blocks multiply at the thresholds.
THE MEANING
When danger presses every entrance, the heart may lose its firmness before the strike, and obstacles multiply where passage should be. The verse keeps its final image stark: a bright blade, wrapped for slaughter.
THE ROOT
לָמוֹג
lā-môg
GROWS FROM
מוּג
mûg
To melt, dissolve, or lose firmness.
The word rendered “faint” grows from a root of melting and dissolution. It pictures the heart losing its firmness under pressure, the same image Hebrew uses when a land or people dissolve.
ALSO GROWS
nāmōgû: To melt or dissolve under pressure.
נָמֹגוּ
In Exodus 15:15, the inhabitants of Canaan “melt away”; the shared root makes this verse’s fainting heart a loss of inner firmness.
nəmōgîm: Melting or dissolving.
נְמֹגִים
Psalm 75:3 applies the same root to the earth itself, extending the image from a heart losing strength to the ground beneath it giving way.
הַמִּכְשֹׁלִים
hamikshōlîm
GROWS FROM
כָּשַׁל
kāshal
To stumble, falter, or cause stumbling.
The word rendered “ruins” belongs to a root family centered on stumbling and faltering. It lets destruction appear as more than wreckage: obstacles multiply, turning the gates into places where movement itself fails.
ALSO GROWS
kāshal: To stumble, totter, or falter.
כָּשַׁל
The root names a loss of footing; here, the multiplied ruin makes the city’s approaches increasingly difficult to cross.
mikhshōl: An obstacle or something that causes a fall.
מִכְשׁוֹל
This related noun clarifies the verse’s image of ruin as multiplying obstructions at the gates.
THE PATTERN
As threat nears the gates, inner firmness melts and the order around it begins to give way.
Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away.The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.THE THREAD
Howl, O gate; cry, O city; thou, whole Palestina, art dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall be alone in his appointed times.Isaiah uses the same root as “faint” for a city being “dissolved,” and names the gate directly. The root links the heart losing firmness with a whole city coming apart at its threshold.
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