What Does Ezekiel 23:32 Mean?
Thus says the Lord GOD. You will drink your sister's cup, deep and wide. You will be for laughter and for scorn, for it holds much.
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
Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou shalt drink of thy sister’s cup deep and large: thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision; it containeth much.THE KEY
The cup’s depth and breadth make judgment a full measure whose result is public disgrace, not a passing taste.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to the moment when a consequence arrives as a cup already measured: you drink it deeply and fully, and its result becomes visible in public ridicule. The text does not soften that exposure; the cup is large, and the laughter is scorn.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a severe consequence can be reduced to a private, passing taste: the cup is deep and broad, and its disgrace is openly seen.
THE ROOT
לִצְחֹק
litzchoq
GROWS FROM
צחק
ts-ḥ-q
to laugh
“for laughter and for scorn” in this verse is litzchoq. The phrase is built from the same root found in Yitzchak (Isaac), whose name means “he laughs.” The root itself names laughter; here its force turns toward humiliation, showing how the same human expression can carry joy or scorn.
ALSO GROWS
tsāḥaq: to laugh
צָחַק
This verb shares the seed behind the laughter that becomes public ridicule in the verse.
Yitzḥaq: Isaac; “he laughs”
יִצְחָק
The name carries this same root, making the contrast between laughter as life and laughter as humiliation visible.
הָרְחָבָה
ha-rechavah
GROWS FROM
רחב
r-ḥ-b
to be broad or wide
“wide” in this verse is ha-rechavah. The word translated “large” carries the sense of breadth: the cup has width and room. The same root can name spaciousness, yet here breadth enlarges the measure the cup can hold.
ALSO GROWS
merḥav: spacious place, open expanse
מֶרְחָב
This branch makes the root’s sense of breadth concrete, while the verse uses breadth to describe the cup’s capacity.
reḥov: open square or broad street
רְחֹב
The word carries breadth into public space, echoing the verse’s movement from a wide cup to public ridicule.
הָעֲמֻקָּה
ha-ʿamuqqah
GROWS FROM
עמק
ʿ-m-q
to be deep
“deep” in this verse is ha-ʿamuqqah. The cup is not shallow or lightly tasted; its depth is part of the measure described. The same root appears in the word for a valley, giving depth a shape that descends below the surface.
ALSO GROWS
ʿamoq: deep
עָמֹק
This adjective shares the root and reinforces that the cup’s measure extends downward.
ʿemeq: valley, deep hollow
עֵמֶק
The valley carries the same idea of depth into the landscape, illuminating the cup’s vertical measure.
THE PATTERN
The cup names a whole measure of consequence that is received, whether as judgment or chosen suffering.
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.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.And he himself drinks from the wine of the seething of God, poured out undiluted into the cup of his swelling. And he is tormented in fire and sulfur before the face of the set-apart messengers, and before the face of the Lamb.THE THREAD
For thus says the LORD God of Israel to me, Take this cup of burning wine from my hand, and make all the nations, to whom I send you, drink it.Both verses use כוֹס (kos, cup) for a portion that is given and drunk. Jeremiah names the cup’s fury; Ezekiel shows its depth and breadth, then names the scorn that follows.
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