What Does Ezekiel 16:50 Mean?
And they were lifted high, and did recoiling things before me; so I took them away as I saw good.
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 they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.THE KEY
The Hebrew pictures haughtiness as height, then names the judgment as removal: elevation is no shelter.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks now: self-exaltation and what is abhorrent before God offer no shelter from judgment. The preceding line names the shape of this height, plenty held alongside the poor and needy without strengthening them. The verse does not soften the judgment: God removes them as he sees fit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that pride and abundance make a people secure from judgment; the preceding line places their plenty beside the poor and needy they fail to strengthen.
THE ROOT
וַתִּגְבְּהֶינָה
vatigbehena
GROWS FROM
גבה
To be high, rise, or become elevated.
“lifted high” in this verse is vatigbehena. Hebrew pictures haughtiness as rising high. The line before this verse shows what that height looks like: abundance alongside people in need, without strengthening them.
ALSO GROWS
gavoah: High or elevated.
גָּבֹהַּ
The same root makes pride legible as a kind of elevation, the image carried by “haughty” here.
govah ruach: A high or proud spirit.
גֹּבַהּ רוּחַ
Proverbs uses the same root for the height that comes before a fall, linking this verse’s haughtiness to a recurring scriptural pattern.
תּוֹעֵבָה
to'evah
GROWS FROM
תעב
To abhor or regard as detestable.
“recoiling things” in this verse is to'evah. “Abomination” carries the force of what is abhorrent, not merely what is unusual. The word places the actions in the verse before God’s judgment as something he detests.
ALSO GROWS
ta'av: To detest or abhor.
תָּעַב
This verb shows the force beneath the noun: an abomination is something regarded with abhorrence.
meto'av: Abhorred or detestable.
מְתֹעָב
This form describes what bears the quality named by “abomination” in the verse.
וָאָסִיר
va'asir
GROWS FROM
סור
To turn aside, depart, or remove.
“took them away” in this verse is va'asir. The verb describes judgment as removal: those named in the verse are made to depart. Set beside the image of rising high, it shows that elevation does not keep them in place.
ALSO GROWS
sur: To turn aside or depart.
סוּר
The basic verb gives the movement contained in the judgment: departure from where one stands.
hesir: To remove or take away.
הֵסִיר
This causative form shows how the root can describe making someone or something depart, as in “I took them away.”
THE PATTERN
Self-exaltation rises only briefly before judgment lowers it.
Swelling goes before breaking, and a breath lifted high goes before a stumbling.The lifted eyes of man shall be brought low, and the heights of men shall bow down, and the LORD alone shall be lifted high in that day.For everyone who lifts himself will be brought low; and the one who lowers himself will be lifted up.THE THREAD
Swelling goes before breaking, and a breath lifted high goes before a stumbling.“Haughty” in both verses comes from גבה (gavah, “to be high”). The shared root turns the repeated image into a connection: height is the posture that precedes the fall.
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