What Does Ezekiel 27:34 Mean in the King James?
In the time when thou shalt be broken by the seas in the depths of the waters thy merchandise and all thy company in the midst of thee shall fall.
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 root behind “broken” also names the sea’s breakers, tying the collapse to the waves’ breaking force.
THE MEANING
When the force surrounding what you have built breaks it, possessions, exchange, and the people gathered around that life all go down together. You see how completely an entire arrangement can be overtaken: the merchandise and the company fall in the same scene.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A vast store of goods and a large, well-connected circle can make you unbreakable.
THE ROOT
נִשְׁבַּרְתֵּךְ
nishbartekh
GROWS FROM
שבר
sh-b-r
To break, shatter, or crush.
The word for “broken” shares its root with a Hebrew word for a breaking wave or billow. The sea’s force is carried inside the word-family: the verse describes not just damage, but a breaking that overtakes the whole scene.
ALSO GROWS
mishbar: A breaker or billow; a breaking wave.
מִשְׁבָּר
Psalm 42:7 uses this root-family for the billows that pass over a person, linking the sea’s surge with the breaking named here.
shever: A breach, fracture, or ruin.
שֶׁבֶר
This branch carries “broken” toward breach and ruin, showing the scale of the collapse in the verse.
סְחֻרָתֵךְ
seḥurātekh
GROWS FROM
סחר
s-ḥ-r
To go about; to trade or traffic.
“Merchandise” belongs to a root of movement and trade, not merely a pile of possessions. Its fall reaches the circulation joining goods, merchants, and routes into one trading order.
ALSO GROWS
sōḥēr: A merchant or trader.
סֹחֵר
The merchant is the person moving within the trade that this verse sees collapse.
sāḥar: To trade or traffic.
סָחַר
The verb emphasizes exchange in motion, illuminating how the verse’s loss reaches an entire system of circulation.
קְהָלֵךְ
qahālekh
GROWS FROM
קהל
q-h-l
To assemble or gather a company of people.
The word rendered “company” is a gathered assembly, not a vague crowd. By placing it beside the merchandise, the verse shows both exchange and the people gathered into that life falling together.
ALSO GROWS
qāhāl: An assembly or gathered congregation.
קָהָל
This noun names the gathered body of people whose fall the verse includes.
haqhel: Assemble; gather together.
הַקְהֵל
This verbal form stresses the act of gathering behind the “company” that is now swept into the collapse.
THE PATTERN
The sea route that sustains a trading order can also become the force before which the whole order falls.
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;Howl, ye ships of Tarshish: for your strength is laid waste.For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,THE THREAD
Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.The Hebrew word translated “billows” is מִשְׁבָּרֶיךָ (mishbarekha), from the same שבר (sh-b-r) root as “broken” here. Hebrew links the breaker to the breaking: the waves carry the action named by the root, and in Ezekiel the merchandise and gathered company fall in their wake.
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