What Does Ezekiel 5:14 Mean?
Moreover I will set you as a dry ruin, and a reproach among the nations all around you, before the eyes of all who pass by.
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
Moreover I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by.THE KEY
The verse binds desolation to public shame: what is laid waste is set before every passerby’s eyes.
THE MEANING
You hear the sentence in full force: the one addressed is made waste and reproach among the surrounding nations, exposed to every passerby. The verse holds devastation and public humiliation together; its wording does not hide or soften the shame it names.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that ruin can stay contained and unseen: here, desolation becomes a public condition before surrounding nations and passersby.
THE ROOT
חָרְבָּה
ḥorbāh
GROWS FROM
חרב
ḥ-r-b
To become dry or desolate; to be laid waste.
“dry ruin” in this verse is ḥorbāh. The Hebrew pairs חָרְבָּה (ḥorbāh, desolation) with חֶרְפָּה (ḥerpāh, reproach). They are not from the same root, but their near echo binds physical ruin to public shame in one sentence.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāraḇ: To become desolate or be laid waste
חָרַב
The verb shows the condition named by desolation: a place or people becoming waste.
ḥārēḇ: Dry, desolate
חָרֵב
This adjective preserves the root’s image of what has dried up and been left barren.
חֶרְפָּה
ḥerpāh
GROWS FROM
חרף
ḥ-r-p
To reproach, taunt, or heap scorn upon.
The reproach here is more than an inward feeling of shame: the root also names the act of taunting. Beside desolation, it makes the ruined condition something surrounding people can see and scorn.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērēp: To reproach or taunt
חֵרֵף
The verb names the act that turns disgrace into something spoken and directed at another.
məḥārēp: One who reproaches or reviles
מְחָרֵף
This form names the person who gives the public shame its voice.
וְשַׂמְתִּיךְ
wəśamtîḵ
GROWS FROM
שים
ś-y-m
To put, set, or place.
The verb translated make also carries the sense of setting or placing. It frames waste and reproach as conditions imposed upon the one addressed, then the rest of the verse shows those conditions exposed to view.
ALSO GROWS
śîm: Put, set, place
שִׂים
This is the root’s basic action and the sense carried by the verb in the verse.
śîm lēḇ: Set the heart; attend
שִׂים לֵב
The phrase retains the image of placing or setting, showing how the root can describe directing attention.
THE PATTERN
When ruin becomes reproach, judgment moves from private condition into a spectacle witnessed by others.
You set us a reproach to our neighbors; a scorn and a derision to those who circle us.All who pass by clap their palms at you. They whistle and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city they call the crown of beauty, the leaping of all the earth?On one hand, being made a sight by insults and pressures, and on the other, becoming sharers in common with those who walk this way.THE THREAD
Nor will I cause people to hear in you the shame of the nations any more, nor will you bear the reproach of the people any more, nor will you cause your nations to fall any more, says the Lord GOD.Ezekiel 36:15 uses חֶרְפָּה (ḥerpāh, reproach), from the same root חרף (ḥ-r-p) as the public disgrace named here. It answers the exposure of this verse with the promise that this reproach will no longer be borne.
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