What Does Ezekiel 19:2 Mean?
And say, What was your mother? A lioness, she crouched among lions, and raised her cubs among young lions.
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 say, What is thy mother? A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among young lions.THE KEY
The word behind “nourished” carries the sense of growing and multiplying: these cubs are raised inside the lions’ world.
THE MEANING
Your formation happens inside a world, not outside it: the mother lies among lions and raises her cubs among young lions. The verse holds nurture and inheritance together, showing life growing within the power that surrounds it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that upbringing happens apart from its surroundings: the one who raises the cubs and the world they are raised in share the same scene.
THE ROOT
רִבְּתָה
ribbetah
GROWS FROM
ר־ב־ה
r-b-h
Grow, increase, become many.
“raised” in this verse is ribbetah. The verb carries the sense of raising or increasing, so the mother’s care is pictured as growth. English “nourished” holds the care; the root also brings forward the life multiplying under it.
ALSO GROWS
rābâ: To grow, increase, or become many.
רָבָה
This basic verb shows the growth contained in the cubs’ rearing.
hirbâ: To increase or multiply.
הִרְבָּה
This causative form makes the connection between raising young and enlarging a line of life explicit.
רָבְצָה
rāvetsāh
GROWS FROM
ר־ב־ץ
r-b-ṣ
Crouch or lie down, as an animal settles in a place.
“crouched” in this verse is rāvetsāh. The verb pictures the lioness settled among lions. Paired with the cubs being raised among young lions, the posture makes their shared habitat part of the image of their formation.
ALSO GROWS
rōvēṣ: One lying down or crouching.
רֹבֵץ
This participial form keeps the focus on an animal’s posture and presence in a place.
mirbāṣ: A resting place or lair.
מִרְבָּץ
This noun makes the resting posture a place, echoing the lioness’s settled world.
THE PATTERN
A young life grows toward the pattern of the world in which it is raised.
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he grows old, he does not turn aside from it.A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully mended will be like his teacher.Do not wander; bad company rots good habits.THE THREAD
And God blessed them, saying, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply upon the earth."The Hebrew verb behind “nourished” shares its root with “multiply” here. That link widens the image: the lioness is not only sustaining her cubs but raising life that grows and carries forward.
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