What Does Ezekiel 21:2 Mean?
Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem, and drip your word toward the set-apart places, and prophesy against the ground of Israel,
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
Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel,THE KEY
The word is told to drip onto the sacred center, then speak against the whole ground it stands in.
THE MEANING
You stand before a word directed toward Jerusalem’s set-apart places and spoken against the land of Israel. The verse brings sacred space and the wider ground together under confrontation: what is set apart is still within the word’s reach. The message descends toward the center and addresses the whole land.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what is sacred is therefore beyond confrontation.
THE ROOT
נָטַף
nāṭap̄
GROWS FROM
נטף
To drip or distil; the root also describes prophetic speech.
“drip” in this verse is nāṭap̄. The word translated “drop” is the same root used elsewhere for prophesying. The image makes the message something that descends onto its target, rather than speech that simply passes by.
ALSO GROWS
haṭṭēp̄: “Drop!” or “prophesy!”
הַטֵּף
This imperative form is used in the verse itself, making the prophetic address a kind of directed dripping.
haṭṭîp̄: “Prophesy,” literally using the root of dripping
הַטִּיף
Micah 2:11 uses this form for prophetic speech, showing that the dripping image belongs to the language of prophecy.
דָּבָר
dāḇār
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; a spoken matter or thing.
Davar can name both a word and a matter or thing. The message is not detached sound: it addresses the actual ground named in the verse.
ALSO GROWS
dāḇār: Word, matter, or thing
דָּבָר
The word directed toward Jerusalem carries the substance of what it addresses.
dibber: Spoke
דִּבֵּר
The verb from the same root connects the spoken message with the concrete matter it brings into view.
מִקְדָּשִׁים
miqdāšîm
GROWS FROM
קדש
To set apart.
“set-apart places” in this verse is miqdāšîm. The places named as holy are places set apart. Yet the word is directed toward them, showing that being set apart does not put them beyond the reach of confrontation.
ALSO GROWS
qādōsh: Set apart
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective names the quality associated with the places addressed.
qōdesh: Set-apartness; sacredness
קֹדֶשׁ
The related noun makes clear that “holy places” are spaces marked off as sacred.
THE PATTERN
A word that comes from God reaches its hearers as provision, exposure, or confrontation according to what it meets.
Now therefore hear and respond to the word of the LORD. You say, Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not drip your word against the house of Isaac.My instruction drips as the rain, and my saying trickles as the dew; as small rain on the tender herb, and as showers on the grass.For the word of God is living and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching through even to the dividing of living soul and breath, of joints and marrow, and it separates the inward movements and thoughts of the heart.THE THREAD
Now therefore hear and respond to the word of the LORD. You say, Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not drip your word against the house of Isaac.Amos uses the same root for “drop” and the same word for “word,” directing that speech against Israel too. The shared phrasing shows that the dripping image names prophetic address that can confront a people.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us