What Does Ezekiel 3:20 Mean?
Again, when an aligned man turns from his alignment, and does crookedness, and I set a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you have not warned him, he shall die in his falling short, and the alignments he did shall not be remembered; but his blood I will seek from your hand.
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
Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand.THE KEY
The warning is an act of making danger clear, and its absence leaves the watcher accountable even as God lays the stumbling block.
THE MEANING
You are not secured by former alignment: when you turn into crookedness, God lays a stumbling block before you, and death comes in your missing. What you once did in alignment is not remembered; the one who withholds warning is answerable for your blood.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A record of former alignment does not make a present turn harmless, and another person’s turning does not make withheld warning consequence-free.
THE ROOT
הִזְהַרְתּוֹ
hizhartô
GROWS FROM
זהר
z-h-r
To shine or be clear; in the causative, to warn by making something clear.
The word translated “warned” is hizhartô, a causative form of this root. The warning is more than a speech act: it makes danger visible before the turn ends in death.
ALSO GROWS
zohar: Brightness or radiance
זֹהַר
This branch reveals the root’s image of bringing something into the light.
hizhir: Warn or admonish by making clear
הִזְהִיר
This causative form connects warning with showing what is ahead, the clarity missing from the verse.
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צדק
ts-d-q
Alignment, rightness, justice.
“aligned man” in this verse is tsaddiq. The same root names both the aligned person and the alignment he practices. His former alignment is not stored as credit after he turns away from it.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Alignment or justice
צֶדֶק
This noun names the quality expressed by the “righteous man.”
tsedaqah: Alignment expressed in just conduct
צְדָקָה
This branch shows the root describing lived action as well as a person’s standing.
מִכְשׁוֹל
mikshol
GROWS FROM
כשל
k-sh-l
To stumble or fall.
“stumbling block” in this verse is mikshol. Mikshol names an obstacle that trips a person into falling. The verse says God places it before the man, while the watcher’s failure to warn still carries an answerable consequence.
ALSO GROWS
kashal: Stumble or fall
כָּשַׁל
The root makes the danger in the stumbling block concrete: it brings a fall.
hikhshil: Cause to stumble
הִכְשִׁיל
This causative branch echoes the image of an obstacle placed in another person’s path.
THE PATTERN
When danger is visible, withholding the warning leaves the silent witness answerable for the harm that follows.
But if the watchman sees the sword come, and does not blow the horn, and the people are not warned; if the sword comes and takes any living soul from among them, he is taken away in his crookedness; but his blood I will seek out from the watchman's hand.If you hold back from snatching away those seized toward death, and those bent toward the slaughter.Therefore I call you as witnesses this day, that I am clean from the blood of all humankind. For I have not drawn back from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.THE THREAD
But if the watchman sees the sword come, and does not blow the horn, and the people are not warned; if the sword comes and takes any living soul from among them, he is taken away in his crookedness; but his blood I will seek out from the watchman's hand.The warning word here is הִזְהִיר (hizhir, warn by making clear), from זהר (zahar, shine or make clear). The repeated blood charge shows that withheld clarity belongs to the danger itself: the threatened death remains real, and the watcher’s silence has consequence.
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