What Does Ezekiel 23:46 Mean?
For thus says the Lord GOD. I will bring up an assembly against them, and I will give them to be shaken and plundered.
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
For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will bring up a company upon them, and will give them to be removed and spoiled.THE KEY
The verse names judgment as a gathered force that makes its victims both an object of terror and spoil.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you with judgment as collective violence: a company comes upon people, who are given over to terror and plunder. It names the harm as public and material, without softening it into an inward struggle.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that judgment language can always be reduced to an inward feeling: here it names people exposed to collective force and material loss.
THE ROOT
קָהָל
qahal
GROWS FROM
קהל
Q-H-L
Assemble, gather.
“assembly” in this verse is qahal. The word names an assembled body, so the force comes as a collective. The English “company” can sound like a mere number; the root also carries the act of gathering.
ALSO GROWS
qahal: Assembly, congregation.
קָהָל
This noun gives the gathered force its shape: a body acting together.
qahal: Assemble, gather.
קָהַל
The verb makes the action of gathering audible inside the noun for “company”.
haqhel: Gather, assemble.
הַקְהֵל
This form is used for calling people together, showing that an assembly can be actively convened.
לְזַעֲוָה
leza'avah
GROWS FROM
זוע
z-w-ʿ
Shake, tremble; the related noun carries the sense of horror or terror.
“to be removed” in this verse is leza'avah. The KJV’s “removed” stands beside a Hebrew term with the force of horror and trembling. The phrase thus holds displacement and dread together: those acted against are moved into a condition that horrifies.
ALSO GROWS
za'avah: Horror, terror.
זַעֲוָה
This is the term behind the verse’s phrase; it gives “removed” a shade of public dread.
zeva'ah: Vexation, terror.
זְוָעָה
A related form in Isaiah 28:19 keeps the root’s dread-filled quality in view.
zua: Shake, tremble.
זוע
The root’s basic action is movement under force, which deepens the phrase’s sense of being shaken.
וְלָבַז
welavaz
GROWS FROM
בזז
b-z-z
Plunder, take spoil.
“plundered” in this verse is welavaz. The verse’s ending is material: the people are exposed to the taking of what they possess. The root keeps judgment tied to dispossession, not only fear.
ALSO GROWS
bazaz: Plunder, spoil.
בָּזַז
This verb names the act carried out against the people in the verse.
baz: Spoil, booty.
בָּז
The noun names what remains to the plunderer after the act.
bizzah: Spoil, plundered goods.
בִּזָּה
This branch makes the material outcome visible: possessions become the spoil.
THE PATTERN
Scripture portrays collective violence as a force gathered against a target, making judgment public rather than merely inward.
The LORD shall lift up a nation against you from far, from the edge of the earth, as the eagle swoops; a nation whose tongue you shall not understand;I will also gather all the nations, and bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will judge them there for my people and for my portion, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and have parted my land.And I see the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to wage war against the one who sits on the horse, and against his army.THE THREAD
I will give them to be shaken among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem.The phrase rendered “to be removed” in both verses comes from לְזַעֲוָה (leza’avah, for horror or trembling). That shared term holds displacement and dread together, so Ezekiel’s line describes more than a change of place: it also names the terror of what is done to them.
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