What Does Ezekiel 27:4 Mean in the King James?

Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty.

Ezekiel 27:4 · 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.

THE KEY

The Hebrew places Tyre’s borders in the sea’s heart, turning what seems like the city’s edge into its center.

THE MEANING

Your borders lie in the heart of the seas. Your beauty is complete, yet it comes through builders: its splendor is made by others and held within a vastness it does not own. The verse holds magnificence and dependence together.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

This undoes the belief that completed beauty proves self-sufficiency: even a city’s splendor is built by others and bounded within what it cannot possess.

THE ROOT

בְּלֵב

bə-lēv

GROWS FROM

ל־ב־ב

l-b-b

Heart; the inward core or center.

The KJV’s “midst” is literally the sea’s “heart.” Tyre’s borders are not merely among the waters; they lie in their inner core.

ALSO GROWS

lev: Heart; inner center.

לֵב

This is the form behind “midst” here, giving the sea’s center the image of a heart.

levav: Heart; inner self.

לְבָב

Deuteronomy 6:5 uses this fuller form in “with all thine heart,” showing the root’s inward sense.

lev yamim: Heart of the seas.

לֵב יַמִּים

Jonah 2:3 uses the same heart-of-the-seas image, where a person is cast into the waters’ center.

גְּבוּלַיִךְ

gevulayikh

GROWS FROM

ג־ב־ל

g-b-l

To mark a boundary; a boundary, border, or territory.

The Hebrew word for Tyre’s borders is also used for the boundary set for the sea. The same root places the city within the waters and gives the waters a limit.

ALSO GROWS

gevul: Boundary, border, or territory.

גְּבוּל

Jeremiah 5:22 uses this word for the sea’s bound, linking Tyre’s borders to the limit set for the waters.

gevulot: Borders or boundaries.

גְּבוּלוֹת

Psalm 74:17 uses this plural form for the borders of the earth, extending the root’s image beyond a single city or sea.

THE PATTERN

Human-made grandeur occupies a world whose boundaries it does not set.

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;

Psalm 107:23 · KJVThe sea becomes a setting for human work and commerce, just as it locates Tyre’s borders.

And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?

Job 38:11 · KJVThe waves stop at a boundary they do not set, showing the limit within which human endeavors unfold.

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,

Revelation 18:17 · KJVA city enriched by sea trade can lose its wealth in an hour, exposing how little its magnificence secures.

THE THREAD

For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

Jonah 2:3 · KJV

Both verses use the heart-word for the sea’s center: Ezekiel places a city’s borders there, while Jonah places a person there. The shared image makes the sea’s “midst” feel like an engulfing center, not a neutral location.

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