What Does Ezekiel 35:3 Mean?
And say to it, Thus says the Lord GOD. Here I am against you, mount Seir, and I will stretch out my hand against you, and I will set you into emptiness.
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 say unto it, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate.THE KEY
Hebrew doubles the root of desolation where English says “most,” making ruin the destination rather than merely the degree.
THE MEANING
The verse confronts you now with a picture of judgment that is direct and devastating: the LORD is against Mount Seir, stretches out his hand, and leaves it desolate. The extended hand here is force, not protection.
THE ROOT
לְשִׁמְמָה וּלְמַשְׁמָמָה
lishmamah ulemashmamah
GROWS FROM
שׁמם
sh-m-m
To be desolate or appalled; in causative forms, to lay waste.
“emptiness” in this verse is lishmamah ulemashmamah. Hebrew pairs two forms from the root שׁמם, “for desolation and for ruin”, where English compresses the force into “most desolate.” The repeated seed makes devastation the whole destination, not merely an added shade around it.
ALSO GROWS
shemamah: Desolation, waste.
שְׁמָמָה
This form names the condition Mount Seir is made to enter.
mashmamah: Ruin, desolation.
מַשְׁמָמָה
This related form repeats the same root, intensifying the declaration through paired images of waste.
THE PATTERN
Judgment’s extended hand makes its target a place of desolation.
So I will stretch out my hand upon them, and set the land as emptiness, yea, more emptiness than the wilderness toward Diblah, in all the places where they settle; and they shall perceive that I am the LORD.Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel with heat and the burning of anger, to empty the land; and it will wipe its ones who miss the mark out of it.And they throw dust on their heads, and cry out, weeping and mourning, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had ships on the sea grew rich by her costliness! For in one hour she has been emptied.THE THREAD
So I will stretch out my hand upon them, and set the land as emptiness, yea, more emptiness than the wilderness toward Diblah, in all the places where they settle; and they shall perceive that I am the LORD.This verse repeats the same root of desolation alongside the image of the LORD’s hand extended against the land. The parallel makes the doubled language in Ezekiel 35:3 audible: the hand brings the target into ruin.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us