What Does Ezekiel 36:31 Mean?
Then you will remember your evil ways and your doings that were not good, and you will be sickened at yourselves before your own eyes, for your crookednesses and for your revolting things.
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
Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.THE KEY
Restoration brings your own harmful ways into view, until you can no longer separate yourself from what you have done.
THE MEANING
You remember the paths you have walked and the deeds that were not good, and you loathe yourself in your own sight because of your crookedness and abominations. The verse names these paths and deeds as your own, leaving no distance between the person and the conduct being remembered.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that renewal makes the past no longer yours: here, your former conduct comes into clearer view, not less.
THE ROOT
וּזְכַרְתֶּם
ūzekhartem
GROWS FROM
זכר
זכר (z-k-r; zākar): remember, call to mind, mention.
English can make “remember” sound like passive recall. The זכר family also includes bringing something to remembrance or naming it, so these deeds become present to you rather than remaining a vague past.
ALSO GROWS
zikkārôn: A memorial that keeps something in view.
זִכָּרוֹן
The remembered deeds become present to you, much as a memorial keeps what happened in view.
hizkîr: To mention or cause something to be remembered.
הִזְכִּיר
This form shows memory as active recall, not a vague feeling.
הָרָעִים
hārāʿîm
GROWS FROM
רעע
רעע (r-ʿ-ʿ; rāʿaʿ): be bad, act wickedly, cause harm.
The verse attaches evil to paths you have walked, not to an abstract category. This root family can describe both what is harmful and the act of doing harm, so the remembered way includes what it has done.
ALSO GROWS
rāʿaʿ: To act badly or cause harm.
רָעַע
It shows the active harm contained in the description of the remembered ways.
rōaʿ: Evil, harm, or wickedness.
רֹעַ
It names the harmful quality attached to the paths in this verse.
תּוֹעֲבוֹתֵיכֶם
tôʿăvōtêkhem
GROWS FROM
תעב
תעב (t-ʿ-b; tāʿav): regard as abhorrent, abhor.
“revolting things” in this verse is tôʿăvōtêkhem. The root carries revulsion within the word: these are acts regarded as abhorrent. The verse keeps that severity beside its direct statement that you loathe yourself.
ALSO GROWS
tôʿēvā: Something regarded as deeply abhorrent.
תּוֹעֵבָה
It shows the force carried by the verse’s word “abominations.”
tôʿēv: One or that which is abhorrent.
תּוֹעֵב
This related form makes the repulsive quality explicit.
THE PATTERN
A person’s own way becomes difficult to evade when memory or conscience brings it plainly into view.
For I perceive my rebellions, and my falling short stands facing me always.And when he came back to himself, he said, "How many of my father's hired hands overflow with bread, and I perish here with hunger!"If we say that we have no falling short, we lead ourselves off the path, and the truth is not in us.THE THREAD
And there you shall remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein you have made yourselves unclean. And you shall sicken at yourselves in your own sight, for all your evils that you have done.Ezekiel 20:43 repeats the same sequence and the same root זכר (zākar, remember): the remembered ways and deeds precede loathing yourself in your own sight. The parallel makes memory the hinge between former conduct and present self-recognition.
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