What Does Ezekiel 18:20 Mean?
The living soul that is missing shall die. The son shall not bear the crookedness of the father, nor shall the father bear the crookedness of the son; the alignment of the aligned shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
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 soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for “bear” makes guilt a carried load, and the verse refuses to assign that load through parentage.
THE MEANING
The living person who misses the mark dies; that person’s own course is not transferred from a parent or child. Alignment and wickedness rest with the person who embodies them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A parent’s wrongdoing determines a child’s standing, or a parent’s alignment can substitute for the child’s own.
THE ROOT
יִשָּׂא
yissa
GROWS FROM
נשׂא
nasa, lift, carry, bear
The Hebrew verb יִשָּׂא (yissa, “he will bear”) opens “bearing” as carrying or lifting. The same root can describe someone raised up, but here the verse assigns the burden to the person whose own course carries it, rather than transferring it through a family line.
ALSO GROWS
nasi: A leader, traditionally understood as one lifted up.
נָשִׂיא
This branch retains the root’s upward motion, showing that נשׂא can describe both carrying and being raised.
hinnase: To be raised or exalted.
הִנָּשֵׂא
This form makes the root’s lifting sense explicit beside the verse’s image of bearing a burden.
THE PATTERN
A person’s own course carries its own accountability; kinship does not transfer another’s standing.
The fathers shall not be put to death for the sons, nor the sons for the fathers; each man shall be put to death for his own falling short.For each one carries his own load.So then each of us shall give an account of himself to God.THE THREAD
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the plunder with the strong, because he poured out his living soul to death, and was counted with the rebels. He carried the falling short of many, and for the rebels he stepped in.Isaiah uses נשׂא (nasa, lift, carry, bear) in “he bare the sin of many.” The shared verb distinguishes inheritance from an enacted bearing: Ezekiel rejects guilt passed down by descent, while Isaiah describes the servant carrying the missing of many.
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