What Does Ezekiel 6:14 Mean?
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.
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
So will I stretch out my hand upon them, and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath, in all their habitations: and they shall know that I am the LORD.THE KEY
The land is not merely made desolate: it is set into desolation, and that devastation becomes how its people know the LORD.
THE MEANING
Here the LORD’s hand reaches against a lived-in land, and the devastation touches every dwelling. The land is set into waste, and the people know who is acting through what they experience. The verse holds recognition and ruin together without softening either.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that the LORD is known only through comfort: here, devastation itself becomes the encounter through which the people recognize the LORD.
THE ROOT
וְנָתַתִּי
wĕnātattî
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
Give, set, place.
The verb rendered “make” is natan: to give, set, or place. The phrase presents the land as being set into desolation, assigning waste across the lived landscape.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: Give, set, place.
נָתַן
This is the root verb behind the land’s changed condition.
mattanah: Gift, something given.
מַתָּנָה
This noun shares the root’s sense of giving; here, what is placed upon the land is a condition of ruin.
שְׁמָמָה וּמְשַׁמָּה
shĕmāmāh ûmĕshammāh
GROWS FROM
שמם
sh-m-m
Become desolate or devastated; leave appalled.
“emptiness” in this verse is shĕmāmāh ûmĕshammāh. The Hebrew doubles forms from the same root: desolation and devastation. The repetition makes waste the land’s defining condition, extending even into its settled places.
ALSO GROWS
shĕmāmāh: Desolation, waste.
שְׁמָמָה
This is the first noun naming the land’s condition.
mĕshammāh: Devastation, ruin.
מְשַׁמָּה
The second form repeats the root and deepens the force of the description.
וְיָדְעוּ
wĕyādĕʿû
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
Know, recognize, perceive.
Knowing is the stated result of the action: recognition comes through encounter, not information alone. The people perceive the LORD through the hand acting upon their land.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: Know, recognize.
יָדַע
This is the root verb in “they shall know.”
daʿat: Knowledge, understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun shares the root’s language of knowing and helps show that the verse points to recognition, not merely hearing a claim.
THE PATTERN
God’s identity becomes known through what God does, whether the act brings judgment, restoration, or disclosure.
And the Egyptians shall perceive that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand upon Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them.And you shall perceive that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,Lean your weight on me, that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else lean your weight on me because of the works themselves.THE THREAD
And the Egyptians shall perceive that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand upon Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them.Exodus uses the same sequence: the LORD stretches out a hand, acts, and the people know who the LORD is. In Ezekiel, the land is laid waste; in Exodus, the hand also brings Israel out, so the same language holds judgment and deliverance together.
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