What Does Nehemiah 4:7 Mean in the King James?
But it came to pass, that when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth,
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 Hebrew word for a breach also carries the force of breaking through, so the place being repaired is where something has broken out.
THE MEANING
As the breaches begin to close, opposition hears of it and flares into anger. Restoration is a wall becoming whole in the present, and that change makes resistance visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief that visible anger means repair has failed is undone here: the anger rises precisely as the breaches begin to close.
THE ROOT
הַפְּרָצִים
ha-peratsim
GROWS FROM
פרץ
Break through, burst out; a breach made by breaking through.
English breaches can sound like empty damage, but פרץ carries the event of breaking through. The same root names both the rupture and the force that bursts out, so the repair reaches the very places where the wall has been broken open.
ALSO GROWS
parats: To break through, burst forth.
פָּרַץ
This verb makes the breach an act of breaking through, not merely a gap in the wall.
perets: A breach or bursting forth; also the name Pharez, or Perez.
פֶּרֶץ
The noun and the name preserve the same link between an opening and the force that breaks through it.
ירושלם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
Be whole, complete; wholeness.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The city’s name carries the consonantal family of wholeness. As its walls are restored, that wholeness becomes visible, while the anger around it shows that its arrival is contested.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This form carries the wholeness that the repaired wall makes visible.
shalom: Wholeness, well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch echoes the nature carried in Jerusalem’s name as the city is being made whole.
לְהִסָּתֵם
lehistam
GROWS FROM
סתם
Close, stop up, block.
“stopped” in this verse is lehistam. The Hebrew names the repair specifically as stopping up the openings. The same consonants describe both the act of closing and the state of being closed, giving the restoration a concrete endpoint.
ALSO GROWS
satam: To shut, stop up, or block.
סָתַם
This verb names the action being done to the breaches.
satum: Closed, blocked, or shut up.
סָתוּם
This form shows the state toward which the closing of the breaches moves.
THE PATTERN
Wholeness becomes visible when a rupture is bound, bridged, or brought back into connection.
He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.THE THREAD
And it came to pass, as he drew back his hand, that, behold, his brother came out: and she said, How hast thou broken forth? this breach be upon thee: therefore his name was called Pharez.Tamar’s question, How hast thou broken forth?, and her naming of Pharez draw on the same root as Nehemiah’s breaches. The word ties a breach to a breaking-through, so sealing the wall’s openings also means stopping what breaks out.
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