What Does Ezekiel 39:13 Mean in the King James?
Yea, all the people of the land shall bury them; and it shall be to them a renown the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord GOD.
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 people receive their renown through burying the dead, while the LORD’s weight is made visible.
THE MEANING
The verse holds the whole land at the work of burying the dead, and that shared act becomes its renown. At the same time, the LORD’s weight comes into view. The honor is not detached from the dead: their burial is part of what the people become known for.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the belief that burying the dead is only hidden cleanup: here the whole people’s act becomes their public renown.
THE ROOT
הִכָּבְדִי
hikkavdi
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty; by extension, to be honored.
The Hebrew behind “glorified” carries the sense of weight becoming evident. The verse places that weight alongside the people’s burial of the dead: their renown and the LORD’s honor appear in the same moment.
ALSO GROWS
kavod: Weight, honor
כָּבוֹד
The familiar word for glory carries the same root’s sense of weight.
kaved: Heavy, weighty
כָּבֵד
This branch makes the root’s concrete sense visible beneath “glorified.”
לְשֵׁם
leshem
GROWS FROM
שֵׁם
Name; by extension, reputation or renown.
The Hebrew phrase is literally “for a name,” the word rendered “renown.” The people’s shared act of burial becomes part of their public name: what they do with the dead shapes what they are known for.
ALSO GROWS
shem: Name
שֵׁם
This is the word in the verse translated “renown,” linking reputation directly to name.
shemot: Names
שֵׁמוֹת
The plural form keeps the focus on names as what identifies and distinguishes.
shem tov: A good name, a good reputation
שֵׁם טוֹב
This phrase shows how a name can carry the reputation a community earns.
וּקְבָרוּם
uqevarum
GROWS FROM
קבר
q-b-r
To bury or lay the dead in a grave.
“bury” in this verse is uqevarum. The verse names this as work shared by all the people of the land. The root branches name both the act and its place, fastening the people’s renown to what they do with the dead.
ALSO GROWS
qever: Grave, tomb
קֶבֶר
The grave is the place named by the same root as the people’s act of burial.
qevurah: Burial
קְבוּרָה
This noun carries the action of burying into a lasting form.
THE PATTERN
Burial is a communal act that carries memory into a place and gives grief public form.
For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.THE THREAD
Wherefore the LORD God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever: but now the LORD saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.“Honour” here shares the root כבד (k-b-d) with Ezekiel’s “glorified”: both carry the sense of weight. The connection brings the verse’s pairing into sharper focus, the LORD’s weight is revealed alongside the people’s act.
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