What Does Ezekiel 31:16 Mean in the King James?
I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.
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 one cast down and those who descend share the same Hebrew root: the mighty enter the very movement that carries the dead into the pit.
THE MEANING
When a power falls in your world, the shock reaches beyond the one who falls; those already beneath it may find consolation in no longer being alone. The verse places even the great among those who descend to the same depths.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that greatness protects anyone from the common descent, or that collapse affects only the one who falls.
THE ROOT
בְּהוֹרִדִי
behoridi
GROWS FROM
ירד
To go down or descend; in this form, to bring someone down.
“cast him down” in this verse is behoridi. The Hebrew uses this root both when God brings him down and when it describes those who descend into the pit. English separates the actions, but the root joins them: the mighty ruler enters the same downward movement as the dead.
ALSO GROWS
yordê: Those going down.
יוֹרְדֵי
This is the same root as “cast him down,” linking the ruler’s fall to the descent of those already in the pit.
vayeredu: They went down.
וַיֵּרְדוּ
The same root describes ordinary travel downward, showing how the verse uses a concrete movement to picture the ruler’s descent.
וַיִּנָּחֲמוּ
vayinnachamu
GROWS FROM
נחם
To comfort or console; in another form, to be moved with grief or relent.
“comforted” in this verse is vayinnachamu. The root can describe both consolation and being deeply moved by grief. Here, the trees’ comfort does not undo their ruin; it places them among others who have fallen, so their depth is no longer solitary.
ALSO GROWS
yenachamenu: He will comfort us.
יְנַחֲמֵנוּ
The same root names comfort as something that meets weariness and grief.
nicham: Was grieved or moved with sorrow.
נִחַם
This branch shows the root’s closeness to grief, giving the comfort in Ezekiel’s image emotional depth without erasing the loss.
הִרְעַשְׁתִּי
hir'ashti
GROWS FROM
רעש
To quake, tremble, or cause something to shake.
“shake” in this verse is hir'ashti. The verse says the nations are made to quake at the sound of the fall. The same root can describe an earthquake or the shaking of the heavens, so the collapse registers as a disturbance in the shared world, not only as a private loss.
ALSO GROWS
ra'ash: An earthquake or quaking.
רַעַשׁ
The same root turns the nations’ shaking into an image with the force of an earth-shaking event.
er'ish: I will shake.
אֶרְעִישׁ
Isaiah uses the root for the shaking of the heavens, echoing how a great fall can seem to unsettle the world around it.
THE PATTERN
The fall of a great power sends shock outward, stirring the earth, its witnesses, and even the realm of the dead.
The earth is moved at the noise of their fall, at the cry the noise thereof was heard in the Red sea.Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,THE THREAD
Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit.Ezekiel repeats the root ירד (y-r-d, “go down”) for casting a multitude down and for those who go down into the pit. The shared root makes the descent a common destination, even for those once counted among the famous.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us