What Does Zechariah 2:13 Mean in the King James?

Be silent, O all flesh, before the LORD: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation.

Zechariah 2:13 · KJV

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 world is commanded to fall quiet because the LORD is not absent or still: he is roused from his dwelling.

THE MEANING

You are included in “all flesh”: the command reaches you as the LORD is roused from his set-apart dwelling. His presence is active, rising into view, and every creature is quiet before him.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the assumption that the LORD’s dwelling means distance or inactivity: he is roused from it, and all flesh is quiet before him.

THE ROOT

נֵעוֹר

nēʿôr

GROWS FROM

עור

ʿ-w-r

to wake, rouse, or stir awake

The Hebrew word carries the sense of being awakened or roused, adding movement to the KJV’s “raised up.” The silence of all flesh answers that awakening: the quiet is before a LORD who is stirring into action.

ALSO GROWS

ʿûr: awake; rouse

עוּר

Isaiah’s doubled “Awake, awake” uses this root for the LORD’s arm (Isaiah 51:9), echoing the awakening pictured here.

hēʿîr: awaken; stir up

הֵעִיר

This form of the same root describes stirring someone into action, giving “raised up” the added shade of readiness.

THE PATTERN

The presence of divine action brings all creation to silence.

But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

Habakkuk 2:20 · KJVThe whole earth is called to silence in the presence of the LORD.

When God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth. Selah.

Psalm 76:9 · KJVGod’s rising to act is met by the stillness of the earth.

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

Revelation 8:1 · KJVSilence fills heaven as divine action unfolds.

THE THREAD

Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?

Isaiah 51:9 · KJV

Zechariah’s “is raised up” and Isaiah’s repeated “Awake” draw on ⁨עור⁩ (ʿ-w-r), the Hebrew root for waking and rousing. Zechariah pictures the LORD already stirred from his dwelling; Isaiah uses the same awakening language for the LORD’s arm.

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