What Does Ezekiel 23:31 Mean?
You walked your sister's way, so I will set her cup into your hand.
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
Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; therefore will I give her cup into thine hand.THE KEY
The path you walk becomes the cup placed in your hand.
THE MEANING
You stand before the consequence of a path already walked: your sister’s cup is placed into your hand. The verse turns resemblance into something received and carried, leaving the severity of that transfer exposed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the idea that a path can be copied without also receiving its consequence.
THE ROOT
וְנָתַתִּי
venatatti
GROWS FROM
נתן
to give, set, or place
The verb carries the sense of placing something into someone’s hands. The cup is not an abstract sentence: it is a portion set directly before the one who must receive it.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: gift
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root shows giving as something transferred into someone’s possession; here, what is given is a cup of judgment.
netinah: giving, the act of giving
נְתִינָה
The shared root makes the transfer itself part of the verse’s emphasis: the cup is deliberately placed in the hand.
דֶּרֶךְ
derekh
GROWS FROM
דרך
to tread, step, or travel
The word for “way” grows from the idea of a track made by treading. Paired with “walked,” it makes the sister’s way a course actively followed, not just a resemblance in name.
ALSO GROWS
darak: to tread, march, or step along
דָּרַךְ
The verb shows the action inside the noun “way”: a path is made and followed through repeated steps.
midrakh: footing, a place to tread
מִדְרָךְ
This branch keeps the image grounded in contact with the path; the verse links the walked track to what is later placed in the hand.
THE PATTERN
The cup makes judgment or suffering a portion personally received, rather than an abstraction.
For a cup is in the hand of the LORD, and the wine foams, full and mixed; he pours from it, but its dregs, all the wicked of the earth, drain and drink.Awake, awake, rise, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his burning. You have drunk the dregs of the cup of reeling, and drained them.And he went a little farther, and fell upon his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass by me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.THE THREAD
Awake, awake, rise, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his burning. You have drunk the dregs of the cup of reeling, and drained them.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew word כוֹס (kôs, “cup”) and places it in Jerusalem’s hand from the LORD’s hand. The shared image opens this verse further: the cup is a received portion of judgment, something that enters the hand and must be drunk.
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