What Does Ezekiel 26:4 Mean in the King James?
And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock.
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
Tyre, whose name means “rock,” is stripped until its only likeness is a bare rock.
THE MEANING
Walls and towers come down, dust is scraped from Tyre, and the city is left like the bare surface of a rock. The verse holds the image of complete desolation: even the city’s outer layer is removed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that strong walls and towers make a city permanent does not survive this image; even its dust is removed.
THE ROOT
וְשִׁחֲתוּ
veshikhatu
GROWS FROM
שחת
to ruin, spoil, corrupt, or destroy
“destroy” in this verse is veshikhatu. The root שחת reaches beyond physical breakage: its branches include corruption and the pit, giving destruction both a ruined state and a downward image. Tyre’s name, צֹר (Tsor, “rock”), echoes the verse’s final picture of a city stripped to bare rock.
ALSO GROWS
shāḥat: to ruin, spoil, or corrupt
שָׁחַת
The same root can describe corruption as well as physical destruction, widening the force of the city’s ruin.
mashḥit: destroyer
מַשְׁחִית
This form names the force that brings ruin, sharpening the violence carried by the verb.
shaḥat: pit, destruction
שַׁחַת
The noun’s downward image gives the root’s ruin a depth beyond the fall of walls.
THE PATTERN
Fortifications and monuments can be brought down until a city is left as a ruin.
For thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defenced city a ruin: a palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built.And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.THE THREAD
And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the LORD have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.Verse 4 leaves Tyre like bare rock; verse 14 completes the image with nets spread across it and the city built no more. The exposed surface is the final landscape, not a temporary breach.
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