What Does Ezekiel 29:4 Mean in the King James?
But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales.
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 ruler is not hauled out alone: what clings to its power is dragged with it.
THE MEANING
This verse shows a power that seems to own its waters being hooked through the jaws and pulled out. What clings to that power is carried with it, so its reach and its entanglements are exposed together. The image remains violent: hooks pierce, fish stick, and the whole mass is hauled from the river.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that control of a domain makes its ruler untouchable: the power that holds others can itself be hooked and pulled out with its entanglements.
THE ROOT
תִּדְבָּק
tidbaq
GROWS FROM
דבק
davaq
To cling, cleave, or adhere.
“stick” in this verse is tidbaq. The same root appears in the verse as both causing the fish to cling and the fish clinging to the scales. The binding is part of the capture: when the ruler is pulled out, what has been made to cling to it comes along.
ALSO GROWS
davaq: To cling, cleave, or hold fast.
דָּבַק
This is the root’s basic action: the fish remain fastened to the scales as the ruler is hauled away.
hidbiq: To cause something to cling or attach.
הִדְבִּיק
This causative form echoes the verse’s image of the fish being made to stick to the scales.
וְהַעֲלִיתִיךָ
veha'aliticha
GROWS FROM
עלה
alah
To rise, ascend, or go up.
“bring” in this verse is veha'aliticha. The Hebrew uses a causative form of עלה: the ruler does not climb out of the river but is made to rise. The movement takes it out of the place where it appears to command its world.
ALSO GROWS
alah: To go up, rise, or ascend.
עָלָה
This is the basic upward movement contained in the verse’s act of bringing the ruler out of the river.
he'elah: To cause to go up; to bring up.
הֶעֱלָה
This causative form shows the ruler being lifted by another’s action, not rising by its own power.
THE PATTERN
The waters and the powers within them remain under God’s reach: he can direct what they contain, gather it, or haul it out.
Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult, is come up into mine ears, therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.THE THREAD
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.The same root דבק (davaq), meaning to cling, cleave, or adhere, appears as “cleave” here, naming attachment without declaring it gentle. In Ezekiel, the fish are made to cling to the ruler’s scales and are hauled with him; the shared word links intimate joining with forced entanglement.
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