What Does Ezekiel 27:19 Mean in the King James?
Dan also and Javan going to and fro occupied in thy fairs: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were in thy market.
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 “fairs” carries the root of letting go: Tyre’s abundance exists because other hands release what they hold.
THE MEANING
This market gathers iron and aromatic plants from beyond Tyre, so the city’s visible abundance is made through exchange. The word translated “fairs” carries the sense of goods relinquished, placing every item in a movement from one holder to another.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this overturns is that a wealthy center produces its abundance by itself: its market depends on other peoples and on goods that leave their hands.
THE ROOT
עִזְבּוֹנַיִךְ
ʿizzĕvōnayikh
GROWS FROM
עזב
To leave, forsake, or relinquish.
The KJV’s “fairs” renders a word built from a root meaning “leave” or “relinquish.” Trade appears as held things passing out of one hand and into another, so the market’s abundance is made from goods continually let go.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāzav: To leave or forsake.
עָזַב
The market word grows from the idea of something leaving the one who holds it.
ʿizzāvōn: Merchandise; goods for exchange.
עִזָּבוֹן
This is the trade word used in Ezekiel’s market lists, casting commerce as goods relinquished into exchange.
THE PATTERN
A city’s abundance is assembled through goods passing among distant peoples and depends on their continued circulation.
Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:THE THREAD
Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.Ezekiel 27:12 uses the same Hebrew merchandise word, rooted in leaving or relinquishing. There, silver, iron, tin, and lead enter the same stream of exchange, showing that this verse’s iron and spices belong to a wider economy assembled from many peoples.
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