What Does Ezekiel 26:2 Mean in the King James?
Son of man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste:
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 city whose name carries שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness), Yerushalayim (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם), is called broken, and Tyre mistakes its loss for the source of her own fullness.
THE MEANING
Tyre, Tzor (צֹר, tsor, rock), faces Jerusalem, whose name carries wholeness, and reads the broken gates as her opening. The verse exposes a present reflex: another’s collapse can look like the source of one’s own security and plenty. Tyre’s “I shall be replenished” makes that hunger audible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that someone else’s collapse can guarantee your fullness; Tyre’s confident claim is tied to another’s ruin, not proof that the ruin will satisfy.
THE ROOT
אִמָּלְאָה
ʾimmālʾāh
GROWS FROM
מלא
m-l-ʾ
To be full; to fill.
Tyre’s “I shall be replenished” comes from a root that moves between filling and being full. Jerusalem’s emptied place is treated as what will make Tyre full.
ALSO GROWS
male: Full, filled.
מָלֵא
This names the state Tyre imagines reaching through Jerusalem’s loss.
mille: To fill, make full.
מִלֵּא
This active form gives voice to the replenishment Tyre expects.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole, complete, sound.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim carries שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness) in its name, and the verse places that name beside broken gates. The name sharpens the contrast: Tyre wants to turn another’s brokenness into her own fullness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, completeness.
שָׁלוֹם
This is the wholeness carried in Jerusalem’s name, set against the city’s broken gates.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
The branch makes the contrast between Jerusalem’s name and the ruin Tyre sees especially clear.
נִשְׁבְּרָה
nishberah
GROWS FROM
שבר
sh-b-r
To break, shatter, fracture.
“broken” in this verse is nishberah. The word comes from a family that names both breaking and a fracture or breach. With gates beside it, brokenness becomes breached access, and Tyre reads that breach as an opening for herself.
ALSO GROWS
shavar: To break, shatter.
שָׁבַר
This verb carries the force behind the brokenness Tyre celebrates.
shever: A break, fracture, breach.
שֶׁבֶר
This noun makes the breach in Jerusalem’s access points audible within the same root family.
THE PATTERN
Another’s devastation cannot be made into neutral profit; rejoicing over it exposes a rupture in shared life.
Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker: and he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished.But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress.And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.THE THREAD
By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.The same root מלא (m-l-ʾ, to fill or be full) voices Tyre’s hoped-for replenishment here and appears again when violence fills her midst. The later verse makes the contents of that fullness visible: the gain Tyre imagines has violence at its center.
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