What Does Ezekiel 32:29 Mean?
There is Edom, her kings, and all her princes, who, in their strength, were placed with those pierced by the sword. They shall lie down with the uncircumcised, and with those who go down into the pit.
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
There is Edom, her kings, and all her princes, which with their might are laid by them that were slain by the sword: they shall lie with the uncircumcised, and with them that go down to the pit.THE KEY
Edom’s kings lie among the sword-slain: their might reaches no farther than the pit.
THE MEANING
The verse places Edom’s kings and princes beside people slain by the sword; their might does not lift them out of the pit. The same descent holds for those named as uncircumcised and for all who go down to the grave.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that rank or strength can place someone beyond death’s reach dissolves here.
THE ROOT
אֱדוֹם
ʾĔdôm
GROWS FROM
אדם
ʾ-d-m
Red; this word family also names the human and the ground.
Edom is also the Hebrew word for “red,” not only a place-name. The shared letters connect Edom with adam, the human, and adamah, the ground, a name that sits here among the sword-slain and those descending into the pit.
ALSO GROWS
adom: Red
אָדֹם
This is the color-word contained in Edom’s name.
adam: Human; the ground-being
אָדָם
The shared root links the name Edom with the human creature.
adamah: Ground, soil
אֲדָמָה
The word family joins the human to the ground, where the slain lie.
גְּבוּרָתָם
gevurātām
GROWS FROM
גבר
g-b-r
Be strong, prevail.
The verse does not erase the rulers’ strength; it shows that their strength shares the place of the slain. The root names both might and the mighty person, yet neither changes where the body lies.
ALSO GROWS
gevurah: Might, strength
גְּבוּרָה
This is the strength attributed to the kings and princes.
gibbor: Mighty one, warrior
גִּבּוֹר
The mighty person is named from the same root as might.
gever: Man, strong man
גֶּבֶר
The root links human strength to the person who carries it.
THE PATTERN
Rank and strength do not exempt the body from the common descent into death.
The small and the great are there, and the servant is loosed from his master.All things come alike to all. There is one meeting for the aligned and for the wicked, for the good and for the clean and for the stained, for the one who slaughters and for the one who does not slaughter. As the good is, so is the one who misses the mark. The one who swears is like the one who fears an oath.And as it is laid up for people to die once, and after this, judgment.THE THREAD
And Esau said to Jacob, Let me swallow, please, some of this red, red stew, for I am faint. Therefore his name was called Edom, the red one.Genesis makes Edom’s name audible as the Hebrew word for “red.” In Ezekiel, that name stands among the sword-slain and the pit-bound, carrying its word-level meaning into the verse.
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