What Does Ezekiel 14:13 Mean?
Son of man, when the land misses the mark against me by great treachery, then I will stretch out my hand upon it, and will break the staff of its bread, and will send hunger upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it.
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
Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it:THE KEY
The Hebrew names repeated treachery, then shows judgment breaking the land’s staff of bread and cutting off both people and beasts from it.
THE MEANING
This verse confronts you now with judgment reaching the material supports of life: the land’s betrayal of God is met by a broken staff of bread, famine sent into it, and people and animals cut off from it. The sequence places breach before God and bodily survival in the same frame, without softening the stated loss.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This overturns the assumption that judgment stays abstract or inward: the verse names hunger, broken provision, and the loss of human and animal life.
THE ROOT
מָעַל
ma'al
GROWS FROM
מעל
ma'al
To act treacherously or violate trust.
“by great treachery” in this verse is ma'al. The Hebrew phrase repeats the root: ma’al ma’al, literally, to trespass a trespass. It names betrayal of trust, giving the land’s offense a sharper edge than a general mistake.
ALSO GROWS
ma'al: To act treacherously or breach trust.
מָעַל
This is the verb repeated in the verse, intensifying the land’s breach.
me'ilah: A breach involving what is sacred or entrusted.
מְעִילָה
This branch shows how the root can describe violated trust in what is set apart.
וְהִכְרַתִּי
vehikhraṭti
GROWS FROM
כרת
karat
To cut or sever.
“cut off man and beast from it” in this verse is vehikhraṭti. The verb behind cut off is also used in the biblical phrase cut a covenant. The same root holds severance and covenant-making, so the verse’s removal of people and animals resonates with the language of binding relationship.
ALSO GROWS
karat: To cut or sever.
כָּרַת
This is the root’s basic action, made stark in the removal of people and animals.
karat berit: To cut a covenant; to establish a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
This covenant phrase uses the same verb, linking the verse’s severance to the language of binding relationship.
וְהִשְׁלַחְתִּי
vehishlaḥti
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
To send forth, send away, or release.
“will send” in this verse is vehishlaḥti. The famine is not merely a condition that happens upon the land; the verse says it is sent into it. The root also carries the sense of sending away or releasing, giving the famine an agent and a trajectory.
ALSO GROWS
shalach: To send forth, dispatch, or release.
שָׁלַח
The verse uses this action to say that famine is sent into the land.
shilleaḥ: To send away, dismiss, or release.
שִׁלֵּחַ
This branch preserves the root’s sending-away sense, while the verse names famine as what is dispatched.
THE PATTERN
In judgment, a breach before God reaches the material supports of life and can bring hunger and loss across the land.
And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall turn your bread back to you by weight. You shall eat, and not be filled.For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, is turning aside from Jerusalem and from Judah the lean and the staff, the whole of bread, and the whole of waters.And I see, and look, a grass-green horse, and the name of the one seated upon it is Death, and Hades follows with him. And power is given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with the sword, with hunger, with death, and by the wild beasts of the earth.THE THREAD
On that day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.The Hebrew verb translated cut off in Ezekiel comes from כרת (karat), the same verb used in the phrase for making a covenant with Abram, literally, cutting a covenant. The shared root joins severance and binding relationship in a way the English wording does not show.
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