What Does Zechariah 9:4 Mean in the King James?
Behold, the Lord will cast her out, and he will smite her power in the sea; and she shall be devoured with fire.
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 translated “cast her out” comes from the root for possessing or inheriting, so the verse makes dispossession the reversal of inheritance.
THE MEANING
The Lord strips the city’s claim to what it holds, strikes her strength in the sea, and fire consumes her. What appears secured by wealth and force remains exposed to removal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that wealth and force make their possessor untouchable or permanent.
THE ROOT
יוֹרִשֶׁנָּה
yôrîšennāh
GROWS FROM
יָרַשׁ
y-r-sh
Take possession or inherit; in the causative form, dispossess or drive out.
“cast her out” in this verse is yôrîšennāh. The root can name possessing or inheriting, while its causative form names dispossession. Judgment here is a reversal of possession: the city that holds wealth and force is made to lose its hold.
ALSO GROWS
inherit: Take possession; inherit.
יָרַשׁ
The root’s ordinary sense of possession remains inside the verse’s forceful reversal.
dispossess: Cause to lose possession; drive out.
הוֹרִישׁ
This causative form illuminates “cast her out”: the city is made to surrender what it holds.
חֵילָהּ
ḥêlāh
GROWS FROM
חַיִל
ḥ-y-l
Strength, force, wealth, or resources.
The Hebrew term gathers material resources and armed force under one word. Her “power” is something concrete that can be struck even in the sea.
ALSO GROWS
wealth: Goods, wealth, material resources.
חַיִל
The word’s range includes accumulated riches, bringing material power into the verse’s threat.
ḥayil: A host, army, or organized force.
חַיִל
The same word can name military strength, joining wealth and coercive power in what is struck.
THE PATTERN
Accumulated wealth and force cannot secure a power from judgment that strips and consumes it.
All darkness shall be hid in his secret places: a fire not blown shall consume him; it shall go ill with him that is left in his tabernacle.Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it.Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.THE THREAD
For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.The verb translated “inherit” is יָרַשׁ (yārash), the same root as Zechariah’s “cast her out” form יוֹרִשֶׁנָּה (yôrîšennāh). One form names receiving possession; the other names dispossessing, linking the city’s removal to another’s inheritance.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us