What Does Ezekiel 30:17 Mean in the King James?
The young men of Aven and of Pi-beseth shall fall by the sword: and these cities shall go into captivity.
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 word for “young men” carries the sense of choice youth, so conquest strikes both a city’s strength and the city itself.
THE MEANING
Violence reaches both bodies and home: the young men fall by the sword, and the cities go into captivity. The future carried by a community’s young and the place that holds its life are exposed to the same conquest.
THE ROOT
בַּחוּרֵי
bachurei
GROWS FROM
בחר
b-ḥ-r
Choose, select.
The word for young men, bachurim, is linked to bachar, “choose” or “select,” and can carry the sense of choice youth. The sword falls on the strength and promise gathered in that generation.
ALSO GROWS
bachar: Choose, select.
בָּחַר
This verb shares the root behind the word for young men, making the sense of choice audible beneath the English.
mivchar: Choice, the best or choicest selection.
מִבְחָר
This branch carries the language of what is selected or choice, echoing the value and strength represented by the young men.
שְׁבִי
shevi
GROWS FROM
שבה
sh-v-h
Take captive, seize.
The word for captivity comes from the verb “to take captive.” The cities do not merely change location; the verse depicts them under seizure, their young already struck down by the sword.
ALSO GROWS
shavah: Take captive.
שָׁבָה
The verb names the act beneath the captivity the cities enter.
shavuy: A captive; one taken captive.
שָׁבוּי
This branch shows the condition produced by the same act of capture.
אָוֶן
ʾāwen
GROWS FROM
און
ʾ-w-n
Trouble, harm, or iniquity, as carried by the Hebrew noun אָוֶן.
The Hebrew form Aven can also be heard as the common noun for trouble or iniquity, giving the place-name a second resonance inside a verse about its fall. That resonance deepens the name without changing its reference to the city.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāwen: Trouble, harm, or iniquity.
אָוֶן
The city’s Hebrew form echoes this word, giving its name an added sense of trouble.
bêt ʾāwen: Beth-aven, “house of trouble.”
בֵּית אָוֶן
This place-name shows how אָוֶן can remain audible as a word of trouble within a name.
THE PATTERN
Conquest dismantles a people through bodily loss, captivity, and the desolation of their cities.
And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.THE THREAD
The glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old men is the gray head.Proverbs names the strength of young men as their glory. It uses the same Hebrew noun, בַּחוּרִים (bachurim), as Ezekiel; the shared word makes the sword’s target the very strength the proverb names.
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