What Does Ezekiel 27:21 Mean in the King James?

Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they occupied with thee in lambs, and rams, and goats: in these were they thy merchants.

Ezekiel 27:21 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The flocks make visible that Tyre’s wealth flows through the work and goods of many lands.

THE MEANING

Your prosperity is woven from what others raise and bring within reach. Lambs, rams, and goats make that exchange concrete: wealth moves through many hands.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The verse dissolves the belief that what you possess is wholly self-made and self-contained.

THE ROOT

סֹחֲרֵי

sōḥărê

GROWS FROM

סחר

s-ḥ-r

To go about for trade; to traffic in goods.

The verse repeats this trade-root for those who deal in the flocks, keeping their movement through a network in view. “Merchants” can sound like a static title in English; the root carries the activity of exchange.

ALSO GROWS

sōḥēr: Merchant, trader.

סֹחֵר

This is the person moving goods through the exchange named by the root.

səḥōrāh: Merchandise, goods for trade.

סְחֹרָה

This branch makes clear that the animals are not incidental details: they are the goods circulating through the network.

THE PATTERN

A community’s abundance and vulnerability both travel through the goods other people bring and buy.

And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands.

Genesis 41:57 · KJVNeed crosses borders as people come to buy what another place can supply.

She is like the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from afar.

Proverbs 31:14 · KJVThe food on her table arrives through the labor and movement of merchants.

And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:

Revelation 18:11 · KJVWhen exchange stops, the merchants’ grief exposes how much their prosperity depends on others buying.

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 · KJV

The word for “merchant” here comes from the same Hebrew root as in Ezekiel 27:21. There, flocks are the goods moving through the network; here, metals show how far that network reaches.

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