What Does Ezekiel 4:5 Mean in the King James?
For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
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
A people’s crookedness becomes visible when its years are counted and its weight is carried by one body.
THE MEANING
What belongs to the whole house is counted in years and placed as a weight on one body. The verse makes communal crookedness visible as duration carried, rather than an abstraction without weight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a shared wrong becomes weightless when spread across many people: the verse assigns it a duration and a bearer.
THE ROOT
וְנָשָׂאתָ
wenāśāʾtā
GROWS FROM
נשא
Lift up, carry, bear.
“bear” in this verse is wenāśāʾtā. The verb comes from נשא, a root of lifting and carrying. The verse makes the years of crookedness a load with a bearer, so what might seem invisible or diffuse takes on weight and duration.
ALSO GROWS
nesi'ah: Carrying, lifting, elevation.
נְשִׂיאָה
This form keeps the root’s sense of lifting and carrying in view: the burden in the verse is something borne, not merely named.
nāśîʾ: Leader, chief, prince; traditionally understood as one raised or elevated.
נָשִׂיא
The same root extends from carrying to elevation; here, its force is felt in the opposite direction, as the bearer takes on weight.
THE PATTERN
What is otherwise hidden becomes visible when duration is numbered and burden is borne.
After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me.Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.THE THREAD
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.The Hebrew verb translated “borne” in Isaiah comes from נשא, the same root as “bear” here. The shared word opens the image of carrying beyond counted crookedness to grief and sorrow borne.
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