What Does Ezekiel 21:15 Mean?
I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, so that their heart may melt, and their stumbling blocks be multiplied. Ah! It is made to flash, it is wrapped for the slaughter.
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
I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may faint, and their ruins be multiplied: ah! it is made bright, it is wrapped up for the slaughter.THE KEY
The sword reaches beyond the gates: the heart melts within, while stumbling blocks multiply at the thresholds.
THE MEANING
When danger presses every entrance, the heart may lose its firmness before the strike, and obstacles multiply where passage should be. The verse keeps its final image stark: a bright blade, wrapped for slaughter.
THE ROOT
לָמוֹג
lā-môg
GROWS FROM
מוּג
mûg
To melt, dissolve, or lose firmness.
“melt” in this verse is lā-môg. The word rendered “faint” grows from a root of melting and dissolution. It pictures the heart losing its firmness under pressure, the same image Hebrew uses when a land or people dissolve.
ALSO GROWS
nāmōgû: To melt or dissolve under pressure.
נָמֹגוּ
In Exodus 15:15, the inhabitants of Canaan “melt away”; the shared root makes this verse’s fainting heart a loss of inner firmness.
nəmōgîm: Melting or dissolving.
נְמֹגִים
Psalm 75:3 applies the same root to the earth itself, extending the image from a heart losing strength to the ground beneath it giving way.
הַמִּכְשֹׁלִים
hamikshōlîm
GROWS FROM
כָּשַׁל
kāshal
To stumble, falter, or cause stumbling.
The word rendered “ruins” belongs to a root family centered on stumbling and faltering. It lets destruction appear as more than wreckage: obstacles multiply, turning the gates into places where movement itself fails.
ALSO GROWS
kāshal: To stumble, totter, or falter.
כָּשַׁל
The root names a loss of footing; here, the multiplied ruin makes the city’s approaches increasingly difficult to cross.
mikhshōl: An obstacle or something that causes a fall.
מִכְשׁוֹל
This related noun clarifies the verse’s image of ruin as multiplying obstructions at the gates.
THE PATTERN
As threat nears the gates, inner firmness melts and the order around it begins to give way.
Then the chiefs of Edom shall be startled; shuddering shall take hold of the rams of Moab; all the dwellers of Canaan shall melt.The nations roar, the kingdoms totter; he gives his voice, and the earth melts.People breathing out their living souls from fear in their hearts, and from watching for what is coming upon the inhabited earth, for the strength of the heavens will be shaken.THE THREAD
Howl, O gate. Cry out, O city. All Philistia, you are melting, for smoke shall come from the north, and none shall be alone in his appointed times.Isaiah uses the same root as “faint” for a city being “dissolved,” and names the gate directly. The root links the heart losing firmness with a whole city coming apart at its threshold.
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