What Does Ezra 4:16 Mean in the King James?

We certify the king that, if this city be builded again, and the walls thereof set up, by this means thou shalt have no portion on this side the river.

Ezra 4:16 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The warning treats belonging as a fixed allotment, framing one city’s restoration as another ruler’s dispossession.

THE MEANING

You hear a warning that sets the city’s rebuilding beside the threatened loss of the king’s portion beyond the river. Its certainty makes restoration sound like a zero-sum contest: as the city gains its walls, the king supposedly loses his share.

THE ROOT

חלק

ḥalaq

GROWS FROM

ח־ל־ק

To divide, apportion, or assign a share.

The Aramaic word means an allotted share, from a root that carries the action of dividing or apportioning. The warning makes the king’s belonging sound like a bounded portion that the city’s rebuilding can take away.

ALSO GROWS

ḥēleq: Portion, share, or lot.

חֵלֶק

This Hebrew cognate shows the share as an allotted part of a larger whole, the very belonging the warning says will be lost.

ḥālaq: To divide or apportion.

חָלַק

The root’s action is division: a portion is defined by how the whole is divided and who receives each part.

THE PATTERN

Power protects its place by casting another community’s restoration as a threat to its own share.

Wherein was written, It is reported among the heathen, and Gashmu saith it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel: for which cause thou buildest the wall, that thou mayest be their king, according to these words.

Nehemiah 6:6 · KJVThe wall’s rebuilding is framed as rebellion, making restoration sound like a threat to the ruler’s position.

If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.

John 11:48 · KJVThe speakers present another’s growing influence as a danger to their own place and security.

THE THREAD

The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.

Psalm 16:5 · KJV

The Aramaic ⁨חלק⁩ (ḥalaq) in this verse and the Hebrew ⁨חֵלֶק⁩ (ḥēleq) in Psalm 16:5 share the root ⁨ח־ל־ק⁩ and the sense of an allotted share. Here, a voice threatens that the king will lose his portion; Psalm 16:5 names the LORD as the portion, opening belonging beyond a ruler’s boundary.

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