What Does Nehemiah 3:32 Mean in the King James?
And between the going up of the corner unto the sheep gate repaired the goldsmiths and the merchants.
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 word for repair means “make strong,” so people with different trades become strength at the same vulnerable edge.
THE MEANING
The vulnerable edge becomes firm through hands with different skills. Refining and trading both become part of the work of restoring what is shared. Wholeness takes shape as each kind of skill strengthens the same boundary.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Only someone with the right title or a building trade can restore what is broken.
THE ROOT
הֶחֱזִיקוּ
hecheziqu
GROWS FROM
חזק
ḥ-z-q
Be strong, be firm; strengthen or make firm.
The verb translated “repaired” carries the sense of making strong. It presents restoration as giving a weakened boundary firmness again, and the same root later describes strengthening Nehemiah’s hands.
ALSO GROWS
ḥazaq: Grow firm, be strong, or prevail.
חָזַק
This names the firmness the repaired wall is meant to regain.
ḥizzeq: Make strong or fortify.
חִזֵּק
This form appears when Nehemiah asks for his hands to be strengthened, linking the wall’s repair with the strength to continue the work.
THE PATTERN
A shared work becomes strong as each person brings their particular skill to it.
Then wrought Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whom the LORD put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary, according to all that the LORD had commanded.For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.THE THREAD
For they all made us afraid, saying, Their hands shall be weakened from the work, that it be not done. Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands.The same root חזק (ḥazaq, “be strong” or “strengthen”) appears when Nehemiah asks God to strengthen his hands. The wall becomes firm through the hands that are strengthened to keep working.
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