What Does Ezekiel 25:11 Mean?
And I will do judgments upon Moab, and they will perceive that I am the LORD.
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
And I will execute judgments upon Moab; and they shall know that I am the LORD.THE KEY
Here judgment is disclosure: Moab comes to know the LORD through what the LORD does.
THE MEANING
Moab faces the LORD’s judgments, and the verse names their result: recognition of who is acting. The name Moab is linked in Genesis 19:37 to מֵאָב (me’av, “from a father”), a wordplay on origin held inside the name. For the reader now, judgment is an encounter that discloses its agent, not an anonymous force.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that judgment is meaningless or anonymous: here, it makes the one acting known.
THE ROOT
שְׁפָטִים
shefatim
GROWS FROM
שפט
sh-p-t
To judge or decide a case.
English can make “judgments” sound like verdicts alone, while the root also names the act of judging and deciding. The verse links that act to recognition: through the judgments, the LORD is known.
ALSO GROWS
shofet: judge
שֹׁפֵט
The person who judges shares the same root as the judgments named here.
mishpat: judgment, decision, justice
מִשְׁפָּט
This related form shows that “judgments” belongs to a family of judicial decisions and acts.
וְיָדְעוּ
veyad'u
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know, recognize, or perceive.
“perceive” in this verse is veyad'u. The verb here is recognition arising through encounter, not merely possession of a fact. The judgments are the means by which Moab recognizes the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
yada: know, recognize, perceive
יָדַע
This is the verb’s root form and carries the same sense of knowing that appears in the verse.
da'at: knowledge, recognition
דַּעַת
This related noun shows knowledge as part of the same word family.
יְהוָה
YHWH
GROWS FROM
היה
To be or become; this verbal family is traditionally linked with the divine name.
The verse identifies the agent of judgment by the name YHWH. Its traditional link with היה (hayah, “be” or “become”) gives “I am the LORD” a resonance of presence: the judgments disclose whose presence is at work.
ALSO GROWS
hayah: be, become, happen
הָיָה
This verb belongs to the verbal family traditionally associated with YHWH’s name.
ehyeh: I am, I will be
אֶהְיֶה
This first-person form from the same family echoes the verse’s “I am the LORD.”
THE PATTERN
The LORD becomes recognizable through the judgments he carries out.
The LORD is known in the judgment he makes; the wicked is snared in the deed of his own palms. Higgaion. Selah.And the Egyptians shall perceive that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand upon Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them.Who will not stand in awe of you, Lord, and give weight to your name? For you alone are set apart, and all the nations come and bow down before your face, for your judgments are made visible.THE THREAD
The LORD is known in the judgment he makes; the wicked is snared in the deed of his own palms. Higgaion. Selah.Psalm 9:16 uses both word families directly: נוֹדָע (nodaʿ, “is known”) comes from ידע (yada, “know”), and מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, “judgment”) comes from שפט (sh-p-t, “judge”). It states explicitly what Ezekiel 25:11 lets unfold: judgment is how the LORD is known.
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