What Does Ezekiel 23:13 Mean?
And I saw that she was unclean, and that the two of them took one way.
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
Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way,THE KEY
The contamination is revealed by its route: two lives have converged on one shared course.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks when two patterns become visible as one: both lives are moving along the same course. Defilement names the condition they share, while “one way” exposes the direction that binds them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that corruption belongs to one person alone; the verse sees both on the same course.
THE ROOT
נִטְמָאָה
niṭmāʾāh
GROWS FROM
טמא
ṭ-m-ʾ
To be or become unclean; to carry impurity.
“unclean” in this verse is niṭmāʾāh. The Hebrew verb names a condition the subject has entered, not merely a label placed on her from outside. Beside “one way,” it reveals that both lives share a course marked by this condition.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāmēʾ: A state of uncleanness or impurity.
טָמֵא
It names the condition that the verse says has become visible.
ṭumʾāh: Impurity or defilement.
טֻמְאָה
It makes clear that “defiled” belongs to a wider family of words for a condition, not just a single act.
דֶּרֶךְ
déreḵ
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
To tread, step, or travel.
The word for “way” grows from the verb “to tread”: a way is a course made real by walking it. “Both one way” makes shared movement the visible link between these lives.
ALSO GROWS
dāraḵ: To set foot on or travel across.
דָּרַךְ
It shows that the shared way consists in the steps both take.
déreḵ: A path or course of travel, and by extension a manner of life.
דֶּרֶךְ
It gives “one way” the sense of a common course, not merely a matching destination.
THE PATTERN
A shared course makes a shared condition visible across lives.
Do two walk together, unless they have met?And he shall give Israel over because of the shortcomings of Jeroboam, who missed the mark and who caused Israel to miss the mark.Do not wander; bad company rots good habits.THE THREAD
Son of man, when the house of Israel settled in their own land, they defiled it by their way and by their doings. Their way was before me like the uncleanness of a removed woman.This verse joins the same Hebrew roots for defilement and way, making their connection explicit. It opens Ezekiel 23:13 further: the shared course is not background detail; the way itself is where the defilement is enacted.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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