What Does Zechariah 9:1 Mean?
The burden of the word of the LORD is in the land of Hadrach, and Damascus is its resting place. For the eyes of humankind, and of all the tribes of Israel, are turned toward the LORD.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
The burden of the word of the LORD in the land of Hadrach, and Damascus shall be the rest thereof: when the eyes of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the LORD.THE KEY
The word is carried as a burden, finds its rest in Damascus, and draws human eyes toward the LORD.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s word carries weight into the places named here, and Damascus becomes its resting place. The human gaze, alongside Israel’s tribes, turns toward the LORD. Burden and rest stand together: what weighs upon a place can also become where attention gathers.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The LORD’s reach stops at Israel’s boundary; this verse places Damascus and humanity’s gaze in the same scene as Israel’s tribes.
THE ROOT
מַשָּׂא
massa
GROWS FROM
נשא
נשא (nasa): to lift, carry, or bear.
“The burden of the word of the LORD” in this verse is massa. מַשָּׂא comes from נשא, “to lift or carry,” joining the weight of a burden with the weight of a word borne into a place. The verse lets that carried word settle in Damascus, so its burden is also a presence that arrives.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: to lift, carry, or bear
נָשָׂא
This verb is the root itself: the burden is what is carried.
massa: a load or burden; also a prophetic utterance
מַשָּׂא
This is the verse’s word for burden, holding physical weight and a weighty message together.
nasi: a prince or chief
נָשִׂיא
This noun from the same root evokes one lifted up or bearing standing among a people, extending the root’s sense of carrying and elevation.
מְנֻחָתוֹ
menuchato
GROWS FROM
נוח
נוח (nuach): to settle or rest.
“resting place” in this verse is menuchato. The word translated “rest” comes from a root of settling. Damascus is named as the settling place of the carried word, bringing the movement of נשא, “carry,” to rest.
ALSO GROWS
nuach: to rest or settle
נוּחַ
This verb gives the root’s basic motion: coming to rest.
menuchah: rest or resting place
מְנוּחָה
This noun shares the root and clarifies the sense of Damascus as the word’s place of rest.
עֵין
ayin
GROWS FROM
עין
עין (ayin): eye; also a spring or source.
“the eyes of humankind” in this verse is ayin. The Hebrew word עין can name both an eye and a spring. The verse’s gaze toward the LORD thus carries an additional image of a source opening toward him, while its parallel with Israel’s tribes widens the field of sight.
ALSO GROWS
ayin: eye
עַיִן
This is the word’s sense in the verse: the human eye directed toward the LORD.
ma‘yan: spring or fountain
מַעְיָן
This related word shares the עין consonants and carries the sense of a source, echoing the verse’s image of sight turned toward the LORD.
THE PATTERN
The LORD becomes the horizon toward which both individuals and peoples are directed.
A Song of degrees. To you I lift up my eyes, O you who sit in the heavens.Turn your face to me, and be delivered, all the edges of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else.That they would seek God, if perhaps they might feel for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.THE THREAD
The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah son of Amoz saw.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew word מַשָּׂא (massa), from נשא, for a word carried with weight concerning Babylon. Zechariah likewise names Damascus as the resting place of the carried word, tying its weight to a place beyond Israel.
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