What Does Ezekiel 16:59 Mean?

For thus says the Lord LORD, I will do to you as you have done, who have despised the oath by breaking the covenant.

Ezekiel 16:59 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant.

THE KEY

The verb for “breaking” also means “annulling”: the covenant is made void, but its consequence does not disappear.

THE MEANING

The verse speaks to the reader with a direct reckoning: God deals with the one who despises an oath and breaks covenant according to that act. A spoken bond remains weighty after it is broken; the breach shapes the response.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that a vow becomes weightless once it is broken.

THE ROOT

לְהָפֵר

lehafer

GROWS FROM

הפר

h-p-r

to break, annul, or frustrate

English can separate breaking a covenant from making a vow void; this Hebrew root holds those actions together. The breach is an annulment of the bond, not an erasure of its consequence.

ALSO GROWS

heferu: they broke

הֵפֵרוּ

Jeremiah 31:32 uses this same root for breaking a covenant, connecting the breach here to a recurring covenant pattern.

yeferennu: he may make it void

יְפֵרֶנּוּ

Numbers 30:13 uses this root for making a vow void, linking the broken covenant to the oath named in this verse.

בָּזִית

bazit

GROWS FROM

בזה

b-z-h

to regard as contemptible or of little worth

“despised” in this verse is bazit. This root names a judgment of value: the oath is treated as negligible. The next verb shows that contempt and breach belong together, the bond is held cheap, then made void.

ALSO GROWS

nibzeh: despised, held in low regard

נִבְזֶה

Isaiah 53:3 uses this root for someone others treat as contemptible, echoing the contempt directed here at the oath.

bozei: those who despise

בּוֹזֵי

Malachi 1:6 uses this form for those who despise a name, showing contempt directed toward what carries identity.

THE PATTERN

What a person does becomes the measure by which the consequence returns.

For near is the day of the LORD upon all the nations. As you have done, so will it be done to you. Your repayment turns back upon your own head.

Obadiah 1:15 · SDVThe action returns to the one who did it, in the same measure named in Ezekiel.

For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you.

Matthew 7:2 · SDVThe measure a person applies becomes the measure that comes back to them.

Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.

Galatians 6:7 · SDVThe consequence follows the nature of the act, as the reckoning here follows the breach.

THE THREAD

Not according to the covenant that I cut with their fathers, on the day I gripped them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 31:32 · SDV

The verb rendered “brake” comes from the same root ⁨הפר⁩ (h-p-r), meaning “break or annul,” as the “breaking” in Ezekiel. Jeremiah then answers the named breach with a covenant written within.

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