What Does Ezra 4:7 Mean in the King James?
And in the days of Artaxerxes wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions, unto Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in the Syrian tongue, and interpreted in the Syrian tongue.
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 reveals a message taking shape through joined voices, inscription, and interpretation.
THE MEANING
You encounter communication as a chain: companions join in the address, a letter takes written form, and its language is named again as it is interpreted. The Aramaic wording names Aramaic at both stages, making visible how meaning travels through words and their rendering.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A message is complete once it is written.
THE ROOT
מתרגם
meturgam
GROWS FROM
תרגם
T-R-G-M
Translate or interpret.
“interpreted, translated” in this verse is meturgam. The verse names interpretation separately from writing, making the rendering of the message part of its communication. This word family includes both the translation and the interpreter, so the written form is only one link in the message’s passage.
ALSO GROWS
targum: Translation or interpretation.
תרגום
It names the rendered message as its own form, echoing the verse’s explicit attention to interpretation.
meturgeman: Interpreter or translator.
מתורגמן
It names the person who makes a message intelligible across languages.
כְּתִיב
ketiv
GROWS FROM
כתב
K-T-B
Write or inscribe.
The writing root echoes in “the writing of the letter was written,” placing the act beside its result. The same seed holds both inscription and the written message, a connection obscured by the English repetition.
ALSO GROWS
katav: To write.
כָּתַב
This verbal form names the act that gives the letter its written shape.
mikhtav: A letter or written message.
מִכְתָּב
It shows the written object growing from the same root as the act of writing.
חבריהון
ḥavrayhon
GROWS FROM
חבר
Ḥ-B-R
Join, connect, or associate.
“companions, associates” in this verse is ḥavrayhon. The companions are named from a root of joining, so the letter’s voice is collective before it is written. The root lets the group register as people linked in an association, not merely as a list of names.
ALSO GROWS
ḥaver: Companion or associate.
חָבֵר
It shows the root’s connection between joining and the people who act together in the verse.
ḥibbur: Joining, connection, or composition.
חִבּוּר
It extends the joining in “companions” to the collective act that produces the letter.
THE PATTERN
A message reaches others when its written form is joined to an intelligible rendering.
So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air.THE THREAD
So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.Ezra places written words and interpretation together in one sentence. Nehemiah opens the same structure into reading, sense, and understanding, showing reception as a linked act.
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