What Does Ezra 9:12 Mean in the King James?
Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever: that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever.
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 ties refusing marriage and the other peoples’ welfare to securing the land’s good as an inheritance for one’s children.
THE MEANING
The verse sets a hard boundary around marriage and shared welfare: daughters are not given or taken across it, and the other people’s peace and good are not sought. It presents this refusal as the condition for strength, eating the land’s good, and passing its possession to children.
THE ROOT
שְׁלֹמָם
shlomam
GROWS FROM
שלם
To be whole or complete.
Here shalom is set beside tov, “good” or “prosperity,” so the denied peace reaches the other community’s welfare, not only an absence of conflict. The root’s range holds wholeness, soundness, and making good together, sharpening how total the boundary is in this verse.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Peace, wholeness, welfare.
שָׁלוֹם
It shows that the verse withholds the other people’s well-being, not merely peaceful relations.
shalem: Whole, complete, sound.
שָׁלֵם
It reveals the depth of wholeness carried beneath the English word “peace.”
shillem: To make good, repay, or recompense.
שִׁלֵּם
This branch links wholeness with restoring or settling what is due.
וִירִשְׁתֶּם
virishtem
GROWS FROM
ירש
To take possession or inherit; in another form, to dispossess.
“leave it for an inheritance” in this verse is virishtem. The Hebrew speaks of possessing the land for one’s children, while the same root can describe dispossessing others. The promised inheritance is therefore bound to a taking and keeping of possession, not simply a gift passed down.
ALSO GROWS
yarash: To take possession or inherit.
יָרַשׁ
It underlies the verse’s promise that the land will pass to the children.
morashah: Possession or inheritance.
מוֹרָשָׁה
It makes explicit the transfer of a possession across generations.
horish: To dispossess or drive out.
הוֹרִישׁ
It exposes the other side of inheritance: one group’s possession can entail another’s removal.
THE PATTERN
These texts frame covenant continuity as requiring boundaries around binding relationships.
Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love.Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?THE THREAD
And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.Jeremiah uses the same root, shalom, and the same call to seek, but turns the direction: the city’s welfare becomes the reader’s own peace. Together, the verses show how much depends on whose wholeness is included in the circle of concern.
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