What Does Ezra 5:9 Mean in the King James?
Then asked we those elders, and said unto them thus, Who commanded you to build this house, and to make up these walls?
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 question translated “Who commanded?” literally asks who set a decree in place, tracing the visible walls back to the authority behind them.
THE MEANING
When work is rising in your life, its visible shape can still leave open the question of what authority set it in motion. The verse holds the structure and its source together: the walls can be seen, while the decree behind them has to be named.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Visible progress, by itself, does not reveal who authorized it.
THE ROOT
שָׂם
śām
GROWS FROM
שים
s-y-m
To put, set, or place.
“commanded” in this verse is śām. The Aramaic clause asks who “set” a decree for them. The verb makes authorization an act of placing something into effect, tracing the question behind the visible construction to its source.
ALSO GROWS
śām: Set, put, or placed.
שָׂם
This is the verb in the verse’s question, carrying the sense of setting the decree in place.
mesimah: Task or assignment.
מְשִׂימָה
An assignment is something placed upon someone, echoing the verse’s question about who set the builders’ charge.
טְעֵם
ṭeʿēm
GROWS FROM
טעם
ṭ-ʿ-m
To taste or perceive; in Biblical Aramaic, a decree or command.
Across its Hebrew and Aramaic cognates, this root can name taste or discernment and, in Aramaic, a decree. The shared range gives the order the feel of a settled judgment, not merely an unexplained command.
ALSO GROWS
ṭaʿam: Taste or flavor; by extension, sense or discernment.
טַעַם
This Hebrew branch preserves the root’s connection to perceiving or discerning.
ṭeʿēm: Decree, order, or command in Aramaic.
טְעֵם
This is the decree the question asks who set in place.
לְמִבְנֵא
ləmiḇnē
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
To build or establish.
“build” in this verse is ləmiḇnē. The Aramaic verb for building shares its root with Hebrew forms for building and structure. The question concerns a work taking shape: who sets the authority behind the act of building this house?
ALSO GROWS
bānāh: To build.
בָּנָה
This Hebrew cognate carries the same building action as the Aramaic verb in the verse.
binyān: Building or structure.
בִּנְיָן
This branch names the formed structure that the act of building brings into view.
mivneh: Structure or form.
מִבְנֶה
This word makes the connection between building and the resulting structure explicit.
THE PATTERN
A visible work invites the question of who authorizes it and who truly builds it.
And when he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?Then answered I them, and said unto them, The God of heaven, he will prosper us; therefore we his servants will arise and build: but ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem.A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.THE THREAD
A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.Ezra asks who set the decree to build; Psalm 127 asks who truly builds the house. The Aramaic and Hebrew verbs share the בנה root, so the question of authorization opens onto the deeper question of what sustains the work.
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