What Does Ezekiel 24:9 Mean?
Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, Woe to the city of blood! I will even make the pyre great.
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
Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the bloody city! I will even make the pile for fire great.THE KEY
The verse sets a bloody city beside a fire-pile made great, revealing that the city’s violence is gathering toward consequence.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now through the image of a city whose violence is plain as bloodshed. What is amassed there becomes fuel, and the fire-pile is enlarged rather than concealed. The warning names a consequence that grows in the open.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a community can normalize bloodshed and keep its consequences buried.
THE ROOT
אַגְדִּיל
ʾagdîl
GROWS FROM
גדל
To grow, become great, or enlarge.
“make great” in this verse is ʾagdîl. The word describes an active enlargement: the fire-pile is made great. Beside the bloody city, this growth makes the consequence of its violence accumulate in plain sight.
ALSO GROWS
gādal: To grow or become great.
גָּדַל
This branch makes the image dynamic: what is named as great can also be understood as something that grows.
gādōl: Great or large.
גָּדוֹל
This is the familiar quality expressed by אַגְדִּיל (ʾagdîl, I will make great), now heard as the result of enlargement.
migdāl: A tower; a tall, raised structure.
מִגְדָּל
This branch carries the same root into something that rises in scale, echoing the verse’s image of a pile being built up.
THE PATTERN
Violence a person or community builds up returns as a consequence that becomes visible.
His toil turns back upon his head, and his violence comes down upon his skull.And they lie in wait for their own blood; they hide for their own living souls.Therefore her blows shall come in one day, death, and mourning, and hunger; and she shall be burned down with fire, for strong is the LORD God who judges her.THE THREAD
Woe to the city of blood! All of her is lies, full of rending; the prey does not depart.The Hebrew phrase עִיר הַדָּמִים (ʿîr haddāmîm, city of bloods) echoes the bloody city in Ezekiel. The shared word דָּם (dām, blood) makes the city’s violence part of its identity, while Ezekiel’s verse adds the growing fire-pile as its consequence.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us