What Does Ezekiel 9:8 Mean in the King James?
And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord GOD! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem?
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 Hebrew uses one root for the speaker who is “left” and the “residue” he fears will be erased: survival and remnant are the same word-shape.
THE MEANING
You can be left while others are being slaughtered, and survival itself can sharpen your cry: will anything remain? The question does not turn away from the violence or make the one left feel safe. It holds the fear that fury may erase even the remnant.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being the one left does not mean the people you love are safe; survival can leave you fearing that everything else will be destroyed.
THE ROOT
וָאֶשָּׁאֵר
va'esha'er
GROWS FROM
שׁאר
remain; be left over
“left / residue” in this verse is va'esha'er. The verse uses שאר twice: first for the speaker who is left, then for the residue he fears will be destroyed. The Hebrew makes his survival and Israel’s remnant the same condition: what remains.
ALSO GROWS
va'esha'er: I was left
וָאֶשָּׁאֵר
The speaker’s own survival is named with the same root as the remnant he fears may be destroyed.
she'erit: remnant, residue
שְׁאֵרִית
This is what remains of Israel; its shared root with “I was left” ties personal survival to the fate of the people.
THE PATTERN
When violence seems to consume the whole, scripture names what remains as a remnant and makes its survival a live question.
Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries.Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.THE THREAD
And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.Ezekiel’s “I was left” and Genesis’ “Noah only remained” use forms of שאר, the root for what remains. Genesis places that word after a description of sweeping destruction, opening the weight of Ezekiel’s fear that even the remnant may be wiped away.
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