What Does Ezekiel 32:20 Mean?
They shall fall in the midst of those pierced by the sword. She is given to the sword. Drag her, and all her multitude.
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
They shall fall in the midst of them that are slain by the sword: she is delivered to the sword: draw her and all her multitudes.THE KEY
The Hebrew holds the people beneath the sword and the whole roaring multitude being dragged into view at the same time.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks of collective violence in a single image: they fall among those slain by the sword, while the singular “she” and all her multitudes are drawn toward it. The whole and the many within it are caught in the same descent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a multitude is protected by its size: the verse places the collective and all its people under the sword together.
THE ROOT
נִתְּנוּ
nittənū
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
give, set, place
“given” in this verse is nittənū. The verb behind “delivered” belongs to נתן, whose basic sense is giving or placing. The clause also pictures the people as put beneath the sword’s reach, deepening the force of “delivered” without changing it.
ALSO GROWS
natan: give, set, place
נָתַן
This verb makes the verse’s delivery concrete: the people are given over to the sword.
mattanah: gift, something given
מַתָּנָה
This noun carries the same root of giving, showing how נתן can name both an act and what is handed over.
הֲמוֹנֶיהָ
hamoneha
GROWS FROM
המה
h-m-h
roar, murmur, make a tumult
“Multitudes” can sound like a count alone, but הֲמוֹן also carries the sense of tumult or noise. Here the crowd is heard as well as counted: all her people are gathered into the same violent image.
ALSO GROWS
hamah: to roar, murmur, or make a tumult
הָמָה
This verb gives the root its sound, making the multitude more than a number.
hamon: noise, tumult, crowd, or abundance
הָמוֹן
This noun holds together the crowd’s size and its tumult, echoing the verse’s “all her multitudes.”
THE PATTERN
When a people are given over to the sword, the violence reaches the collective body, not only an individual.
He handed over his people to the sword, and overflowed against his inheritance.She who bore seven grows faint; she has breathed out her living soul. Her sun has gone down while it is still day. She has been shamed and confounded, and the remnant of them I will give to the sword before their enemies, says the LORD.And the rest are slain by the sword of the one who sits on the horse, the sword that goes out from his mouth, and all the birds are filled with their flesh.THE THREAD
And he has set it to be polished, that it may be grasped. This sword is sharpened, and it is polished, to set it into the hand of the slayer.The same root, נתן (natan), appears around the sword: it is given into the slayer’s hand, while here the people are given to its reach. The shared verb links the sword’s preparation with the people being placed beneath its violence.
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