What Does Ezekiel 25:6 Mean?
For thus says the Lord GOD, because you clapped your hands and stamped with your feet, and rejoiced with all your living soul in scorn against the land of Israel.
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; Because thou hast clapped thine hands, and stamped with the feet, and rejoiced in heart with all thy despite against the land of Israel;THE KEY
Gloating here is not a private feeling; the stamping and clapping make the heart’s contempt visible.
THE MEANING
When another people’s harm becomes the occasion for clapping, stamping, and gladness, contempt has taken bodily form. The verse exposes delight in another’s diminishment as an inward posture made visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that contempt is harmless when it stays inside the heart dissolves here: the heart’s joy shows itself in the body’s actions.
THE ROOT
וְרָקַעְתָּ
wə-rāqaʿtā
GROWS FROM
רקע
To stamp or beat out; to spread something by striking it.
“stamped” in this verse is wə-rāqaʿtā. This root holds striking and spreading together. The foot-stamp makes contempt physical: the body joins the hostility the heart already carries.
ALSO GROWS
raqiaʿ: Expanse, firmament
רָקִיעַ
This word comes from the same root’s sense of spreading out; the root ranges from the force of a strike to what is spread open.
wayraqqeʿu: They hammered or beat out, as metal into thin plates
וַיְרַקְּעוּ
This branch shows the root’s force applied until material spreads thin; here the stamping makes the contempt forceful and public.
וַתִּשְׂמַח
vattismaḥ
GROWS FROM
שמח
To rejoice, be glad.
“rejoiced” in this verse is vattismaḥ. The same root spans gladness itself and the act of making glad. Here the joy is aimed at Israel’s harm, and the clapping and stamping give that inward gladness an outward direction.
ALSO GROWS
simchah: Joy, gladness
שִׂמְחָה
This noun shares the root with “rejoiced” and names the gladness the verse locates in the heart.
mesammeaḥ: One who gladdens; making glad
מְשַׂמֵּחַ
This form shows the root’s relational reach: gladness can be caused in another, while this verse shows joy turned toward another people’s suffering.
THE PATTERN
Rejoicing at another’s fall reveals contempt, while shared joy and grief make the neighbor’s fate matter.
Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart leap when he stumbles.And do not gaze upon the day of your brother, the day he became a foreigner. Do not rejoice over the children of Judah on the day they lost their way. Do not make your mouth large in the day of the narrow place.Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.THE THREAD
Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart leap when he stumbles.Both verses use שָׂמַח (samach), the root for rejoicing, beside the image of an enemy’s fall. Ezekiel shows contempt through clapping and stamping; Proverbs names the gladness in the heart.
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