What Does Nehemiah 13:20 Mean in the King James?
So the merchants and sellers of all kind of ware lodged without Jerusalem once or twice.
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
What cannot enter the city of wholeness may still camp at its edge, waiting for the gate to open.
THE MEANING
A boundary can block entry and still leave what presses against it near enough to return. The sellers do not vanish when they are kept outside; they spend their nights at the edge, once and again.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the belief that closing the gate makes what presses against it disappear.
THE ROOT
וַיָּלִינוּ
wayyālînû
GROWS FROM
לון
l-w-n
To lodge or remain overnight.
“lodged” in this verse is wayyālînû. The verb says more than that the merchants are outside: they spend the night there. The root family connects the act of lodging to a lodging-place, making the boundary somewhere they inhabit, even temporarily.
ALSO GROWS
malon: Lodging-place
מָלוֹן
The noun makes the root’s overnight staying into a place, echoing how the merchants occupy the city’s edge.
linah: Lodging, an overnight stay
לִינָה
This branch carries the duration in the verse: the merchants remain through the night rather than merely passing by.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete; wholeness.
The name carries shalom, wholeness, so “without Jerusalem” places the merchants at the edge of a city named for wholeness. They remain close to it, but the verse leaves them outside.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness
שָׁלוֹם
This is the wholeness carried in the city’s name, which sharpens the contrast between the city and those waiting outside it.
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch gives the name’s wholeness a concrete sense of completeness, set against the verse’s boundary between inside and outside.
THE PATTERN
A closed threshold can leave a presence waiting at its edge instead of making it disappear.
And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:THE THREAD
And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.Both verses use לון (lun, “lodge overnight”) for remaining through the night. Genesis places that same staying at a household threshold: Lot invites the visitors inside, while they say they will remain in the street; Nehemiah’s merchants likewise spend the night beyond Jerusalem.
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