What Does Ezekiel 26:10 Mean in the King James?
By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach.
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 word translated “breach” reveals the city’s decisive change: its wall is no longer a boundary but an opening through which invasion enters.
THE MEANING
You see the city under direct assault: horsemen’s dust covers it, its walls shake beneath the cavalry and chariots, and the gates become an entrance like those of a city already breached. The verse holds the violence plainly: the invading force enters through a boundary that has been broken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this image undoes is that visible defenses guarantee safety: immense force can shake them, and a breached boundary leaves entry open.
THE ROOT
מְבֻקָּעָה
mevuqqāʿāh
GROWS FROM
בקע
b-q-ʿ
split open; cleave
“breach” in this verse is mevuqqāʿāh. The city is described as one split open, its boundary cut through. Across this root, an opening can become a valley or a sea crossing; here, it is the route of an army.
ALSO GROWS
bāqaʿ: split open; cleave
בָּקַע
This is the verb used when the sea is divided in Exodus 14:16: a barrier becomes a crossing.
biqʿāh: cleft, valley, or broad lowland
בִּקְעָה
This related noun carries the root’s split-open shape into the landscape itself.
תִּרְעַשְׁנָה
tirʿashnāh
GROWS FROM
רעש
r-ʿ-sh
quake, tremble, rumble
“shake” in this verse is tirʿashnāh. The root names both a quake and the act of quaking, so the walls’ trembling is part of the assault’s physical force. The KJV’s “noise” names what is heard, while the Hebrew verb keeps the shaking itself in view.
ALSO GROWS
rāʿash: to quake or tremble
רָעַשׁ
This verb form carries the action seen in the walls as the force approaches.
raʿash: quake, earthquake, or tumult
רַעַשׁ
The related noun names the upheaval itself, linking the walls’ motion with the larger violence of the scene.
THE PATTERN
A breached boundary converts an enclosure into a route of passage.
But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.And the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king’s garden: (now the Chaldees were against the city round about:) and the king went the way toward the plain.And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;THE THREAD
But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.The “breach” here and the sea’s “divide” use בָּקַע (bāqaʿ, split open). In Ezekiel the split admits an army; in Exodus it makes dry ground for passage, so the same root holds both the rupture and the route it creates.
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