What Does Ezekiel 21:16 Mean?

Go one way, or the other, to the right hand or to the left, wherever your face is set.

Ezekiel 21:16 · 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

Go thee one way or other, either on the right hand, or on the left, whithersoever thy face is set.

THE KEY

The face is “appointed”: the violence is directed, not wandering.

THE MEANING

This verse speaks of force given a direction: the blade turns right or left toward where its face is appointed. Its violence is plain, and its movement is deliberate.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the idea that this violence is stray or uncontrolled: the blade is being directed.

THE ROOT

מוּעָדִים

mo'adim

GROWS FROM

יעד

y-ʿ-d

to appoint, designate, or set for an encounter

The word rendered “set” is ⁨מוּעָדִים⁩ (mo’adim), “appointed” or “directed,” from ⁨יעד⁩ (ya’ad). The same root appears in ⁨מוֹעֵד⁩ (mo’ed), an appointed time or meeting place: this face is not merely pointed somewhere, but fixed toward an encounter.

ALSO GROWS

ya'ad: appoint, designate, or set to meet

יָעַד

The blade’s direction is assigned; its movement is not accidental.

mo'ed: appointed time or meeting place

מוֹעֵד

This branch links a set direction with a fixed encounter.

THE PATTERN

A face fixed toward an end gives movement a defined direction.

For the Lord GOD will gird me; therefore I have not been shamed. Therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed.

Isaiah 50:7 · SDVA face set like flint makes the speaker’s direction firm and unmistakable.

And it came to pass, when the days of his being taken up were filling full, he firmly set his face to go to Jerusalem.

Luke 9:51 · SDVA set face turns the approach of a decisive moment into movement toward a named destination.

THE THREAD

Is any word too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will turn back to you, at this season of life, and Sarah will have a son.

Genesis 18:14 · SDV

“Set” in Ezekiel and “appointed” in Genesis draw on the root ⁨יעד⁩ (ya’ad). In Ezekiel the appointment directs a face; in Genesis it fixes a time for return.

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