What Does Ezekiel 27:2 Mean in the King James?
Now, thou son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus;
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 lament is a load to be lifted, so grief becomes a message the prophet carries over Tyrus.
THE MEANING
You stand inside the command to lift grief over Tyrus; the lament gives loss a voice before its full contours unfold. The verse holds a city’s stature and vulnerability in the same present moment.
THE ROOT
שָׂא
sa
GROWS FROM
נשא
to lift, carry, or bear
“take up” in this verse is sa. The Hebrew command is literally “lift a qinah,” so grief is borne into speech. The same root forms massa, “burden” or “oracle,” making the lament a weight that carries a message.
ALSO GROWS
massa: A burden carried; also an utterance borne as a prophetic message.
מַשָּׂא
It shows how the lament can be both a weight and something spoken.
nasi: A person elevated to prominence.
נָשִׂיא
The root’s language of lifting places the lament over a city whose stature is exposed in the chapter that follows.
בֶּן־אָדָם
ben-adam
GROWS FROM
אדם
human, ground-being; the word-family links humanity with adamah, ground or soil
“son of man” in this verse is ben-adam. The address is ben-adam, “son of adam”: the one who carries this lament is named through humanity’s ground-root. The words for human, soil, and red share the same consonants, keeping the address embodied and earthbound.
ALSO GROWS
adamah: Ground, soil.
אֲדָמָה
The shared word-family reveals the ground-root inside “son of man.”
adom: Red, ruddy.
אָדֹם
The same consonants connect the human name with the earth’s coloring.
THE PATTERN
A city’s splendor and security can become the subject of lament when its power is exposed to loss.
And they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee, How art thou destroyed, that wast inhabited of seafaring men, the renowned city, which wast strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, which cause their terror to be on all that haunt it!Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:THE THREAD
Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,Ezekiel 19:1 repeats the same Hebrew pair, שָׂא קִינָה (sa qinah, “lift a lamentation”), over Israel’s princes. Here that same carried utterance is directed over Tyrus, linking lament to the exposure of public power.
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