What Does Ezra 4:8 Mean in the King James?
Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king in this sort:
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 letter is aimed at Jerusalem, but the name makes its target wholeness itself.
THE MEANING
Opposition takes the form of an official letter, carrying a claim against Jerusalem to royal authority. The place-name carries the language of wholeness, so the target bears a meaning beyond the city’s walls.
THE ROOT
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
To be whole or complete; to bring something to completion.
The name Jerusalem carries the sound and root of wholeness. The letter is directed against a place whose name holds that meaning, making the threat about more than a location: it presses against the possibility of wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness; peace
שָׁלוֹם
This branch makes the connection between Jerusalem and wholeness audible in a familiar word.
shalem: Whole; complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch reveals completion within the name’s root, sharpening what the opposition is directed against.
shillem: To repay; make good
שִׁלֵּם
This branch carries the root from wholeness into restoration or making good, a further shade of what wholeness can involve.
THE PATTERN
When writing reaches the hands of authority, a message can become an instrument that shapes the fate of a people.
And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto the LORD God of Israel.Then were the king’s scribes called on the thirteenth day of the first month, and there was written according to all that Haman had commanded unto the king’s lieutenants, and to the governors that were over every province, and to the rulers of every people of every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language; in the name of king Ahasuerus was it written, and sealed with the king’s ring.Claudius Lysias unto the most excellent governor Felix sendeth greeting.THE THREAD
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.The word translated “peace” is shalom, from the same root שלם carried in the name Jerusalem. Here the city named as the target of a letter is joined to wholeness, making the root-level tension visible.
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