What Does Ezra 7:25 Mean in the King James?
And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God; and teach ye them that know them not.
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
Ezra’s name, עֶזְרָא (ʿEzrāʾ, help), gathers the verse’s movement: wisdom held in one person becomes justice and shared understanding for all.
THE MEANING
The wisdom in your hands takes public shape in the decisions that affect a whole community and in teaching people what they do not yet know. Authority here carries both discernment and the opening of understanding.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wisdom is complete when it remains private: here, its purpose is seen in just judgment and in making understanding accessible.
THE ROOT
חָכְמַת
ḥokmat
GROWS FROM
חכם
ḥ-k-m
To be wise or skillful; to act with practical discernment.
The Aramaic word for wisdom comes from a root that also describes skill. Wisdom in your hand is active capacity: it shapes judgment and makes understanding available to those who do not yet know.
ALSO GROWS
ḥākām: A wise or skilled person.
חָכָם
The same root joins discernment with the ability to carry it into action.
ḥokhmāh: Wisdom, including practical skill.
חָכְמָה
This form shows that wisdom can be exercised as a capacity, fitting the verse’s picture of wisdom in hand.
דָּיָנִין
dāyānīn
GROWS FROM
דין
d-y-n
To judge, adjudicate, or decide a case.
“judge” in this verse is dāyānīn. The Aramaic term for judges shares its root with the word for judgment. The verse ties wisdom to the decisions that order communal life.
ALSO GROWS
dayyān: A judge or adjudicator.
דַּיָּן
This is the singular form behind the judges appointed in the verse.
dîn: A judgment or legal decision.
דִּין
The related word brings the judges’ work into view: rendering judgment.
תְּהוֹדְעוּן
tehōdeʿûn
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know or perceive; in a causative form, to make known.
“teach” in this verse is tehōdeʿûn. The Aramaic verb is causative: Ezra is to make known what others do not know. Teaching moves understanding from absence into shared access.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: To know or perceive.
יָדַע
This is the knowing the verse says some people do not yet have.
daʿat: Knowledge or understanding.
דַּעַת
The related noun names what teaching makes accessible.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom held in trust becomes communal through fair judgment and understanding passed on to others.
And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him.And he set judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city,And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.THE THREAD
A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.The Aramaic root ד־י־ן (d-y-n, judge or adjudicate) underlies the judges in Ezra and the judgment in Daniel. The shared root opens a connection between judgment carried out among a community and judgment set before the opened books.
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