What Does Ezekiel 15:7 Mean?
And I will set my face against them; from the fire they will go out, and the fire will eat them; and you will perceive that I am the LORD, when I set my face against them.
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
And I will set my face against them; they shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them; and ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I set my face against them.THE KEY
The repeated “set my face against” makes the fire an encounter with the LORD’s turned presence.
THE MEANING
This verse holds a severe truth in the present: leaving one fire does not end the danger, because another fire consumes them. The LORD’s face is set against them, and recognition of who the LORD is comes through that direct encounter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Escaping the first danger means the threat is over.
THE ROOT
פָּנַי
panay
GROWS FROM
פנה
p-n-h
To turn or direct oneself toward.
Panay (“my face”) belongs to the panah family of turning and directing oneself. The verse’s repeated wording makes the LORD’s face a turned presence and the judgment a direct encounter.
ALSO GROWS
panah: Turn, turn toward.
פָּנָה
This is the action carried in the phrase “set my face”: the LORD’s presence is directed toward them.
panim: Face, presence.
פָּנִים
This branch lets “face” carry the sense of a presence turned toward the people in judgment.
וִידַעְתֶּם
vidaʿtem
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know, recognize, perceive.
“perceive” in this verse is vidaʿtem. Yada carries knowing by encounter; here, recognition comes as the LORD’s face is set against them. Their knowledge of the LORD is bound to what they undergo.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: Knowledge, understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun keeps knowledge in the same root family as the verse’s “you shall know.”
yediʿah: Knowing, recognition.
יְדִיעָה
This form highlights knowing as recognition, fitting the encounter through which they recognize the LORD.
THE PATTERN
A person may escape one danger only to be met by another, as judgment remains active.
And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given of his seed to Molech, to soil my set-apart place, and to pierce my set-apart name.As when a man flees from a lion, and a bear meets him, or he goes into the house and leans his hand against the wall, and a serpent bites him.And they climb up across the breadth of the earth and encircle the camp of the set-apart ones and the beloved city. Fire comes down from God out of heaven and devours them.THE THREAD
The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off their memory from the earth.Psalm 34:16 repeats the face-against construction, using panim for the LORD’s presence turned toward evildoers. Beside Ezekiel, it makes the repeated phrase a picture of direct encounter with that presence.
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