What Does Ezekiel 38:21 Mean in the King James?
And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man’s sword shall be against his brother.
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 sword summoned against an enemy becomes the blade a brother turns against his own.
THE MEANING
Violence here does not stay aimed outward: the sword summoned against an enemy becomes a brother’s weapon against his own. The ruin reaches into the bonds meant to hold people together, until kinship itself becomes part of the battlefield.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that violence can stay aimed at an enemy without turning against one’s own; the brother is already within the sword’s reach.
THE ROOT
חֶרֶב
ḥerev
GROWS FROM
חרב
ḥ-r-b
To dry up, become desolate, or lay waste; the noun חֶרֶב means sword.
“sword” in this verse is ḥerev. English names the weapon, while the Hebrew root also carries the sound of drying up and desolation. Here the blade’s ruin reaches into kinship itself: a brother becomes its target.
ALSO GROWS
charav: To dry up, become desolate, or lay waste
חָרַב
The verb links the sword with the devastation it brings: what the blade touches can become waste.
chorbah: Ruin, desolation
חָרְבָּה
This branch names the desolate state associated with the sword’s work, joining weapon and aftermath in one root family.
THE PATTERN
Violence aimed outward can turn inward until people make kin the targets of their own weapons.
And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and the LORD set every man’s sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host: and the host fled to Beth-shittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abel-meholah, unto Tabbath.For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another.Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death.THE THREAD
And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and the LORD set every man’s sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host: and the host fled to Beth-shittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abel-meholah, unto Tabbath.Judges uses the same Hebrew word for sword, חֶרֶב (ḥerev), as Ezekiel, but says each man’s sword is against his fellow. Ezekiel’s word “brother” gives that inward turn its closest human name.
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