What Does Ezekiel 38:8 Mean in the King James?
After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
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 verse makes safety collective: restoration gathers the scattered into a shared dwelling where all can live securely.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you of land and people restored after the sword and gathered from many peoples; their story is not exhausted by displacement. It names the long waste plainly, then says that all dwell securely even as another force comes against Israel’s mountains.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Violence has scattered me, so I can never return to a place of shared safety.
THE ROOT
מְקֻבֶּצֶת
mequbbéṣet
GROWS FROM
קבץ
To collect or bring together.
“gathered” in this verse is mequbbéṣet. The verse applies a gathering word to a people drawn out of many peoples: the scattered become a collective in one place. The root names a deliberate bringing together, which the next clause completes with everyone dwelling securely.
ALSO GROWS
leqabbēṣ: To gather or collect.
לְקַבֵּץ
This verbal form makes the movement active: people are brought together from their dispersion.
qibbūṣ: A gathering or collection.
קִבּוּץ
The noun carries the same seed of many becoming one gathered body.
מְשׁוֹבֶבֶת
meshovevet
GROWS FROM
שוב
To turn or return; in this form, to restore or bring back.
“brought back” in this verse is meshovevet. The land is described with a form of שׁוּב, “return,” the same root as Psalm 23:3’s “he restoreth” (יְשׁוֹבֵב, yeshovev). The Hebrew lets the land’s return echo the language of a living soul being restored.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To turn or return.
שׁוּב
The basic root supplies the movement of return within “brought back.”
yeshovev: He restores or brings back.
יְשׁוֹבֵב
Psalm 23:3 uses this form for the restoration of the soul, letting restoration of land and inner life echo one another.
teshuvah: Return or turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun keeps the root’s sense of return visible: restoration carries a movement back toward what was displaced.
לָבֶטַח
labetach
GROWS FROM
בטח
To trust, rely, or be secure.
The word translated “safely” belongs to a word-family of security and confidence. Safety is pictured as a condition the people can inhabit, a stark counterweight to the sword and the land’s long waste named in the same verse.
ALSO GROWS
bataḥ: To trust, rely, or be secure.
בָּטַח
The verb links security with confidence and reliance, rather than leaving safety as an abstract condition.
mivtaḥ: Confidence, refuge, or security.
מִבְטָח
This related noun shows how the same root can name a place or state of security.
THE PATTERN
When displacement scatters a people, restoration gathers them into shared belonging and settled life.
That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee.And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.THE THREAD
And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:Both verses use קבץ, “gather,” so the people gathered in Ezekiel 38:8 are named through the same root as those brought in from among the nations here. The movement from gathering into their own land culminates in the promise that they all dwell securely.
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