What Does Ezekiel 7:20 Mean?
As for the adornment of his jewels, he set it in rising pride, but they made images of their sickening things and their loathsome things within it. Therefore I have set it as something shaken away from them.
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
As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty: but they made the images of their abominations and of their detestable things therein: therefore have I set it far from them.THE KEY
The ornament becomes a container for what is loathsome, and its elevation cannot shield it from defilement.
THE MEANING
An object can carry honor and corruption at once: what is lifted up as beauty is filled with abhorrent images. The verse shows the moment that overlap makes the ornament something to be held at a distance. Its splendor does not hide what has been made within it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that what is beautiful or honored stays pure regardless of what is put inside it. Here, what is made within the ornament undoes its honor.
THE ROOT
גָּאוֹן
ga'on
GROWS FROM
גאה
Rise, be high, become exalted; highness or pride.
“rising pride” in this verse is ga'on. The word rendered “majesty” carries the sense of elevation and pride. Yet the ornament’s high place does not protect it: the people fill it with detestable images, so what bore splendor becomes inseparable from what they made within it.
ALSO GROWS
ga'ah: To rise, be high, or exalt oneself.
גָּאָה
This verb shares the root’s consonants and makes the elevation in “majesty” concrete.
ge'eh: High, lofty, or proud.
גֵּאֶה
This form shows how the root’s sense of height extends to pride, shading the ornament’s elevation.
תּוֹעֲבוֹתָם
to'avotam
GROWS FROM
תעב
Abhor, regard as loathsome or abhorrent.
“sickening things” in this verse is to'avotam. The word names something abhorred, not merely an unattractive object. Set alongside a second word for detestable things, it makes the revulsion explicit before the verse says these images are made inside the ornament.
ALSO GROWS
to'evah: An abomination; something abhorrent.
תּוֹעֵבָה
This is the singular noun behind the verse’s plural “abominations.”
to'ev: Abhorrent or detested.
תּוֹעֵב
This form carries the same root judgment into a description of what is loathed.
שִׁקּוּצֵיהֶם
shiqqutseihem
GROWS FROM
שקץ
Loathe, treat as detestable.
“loathsome things” in this verse is shiqqutseihem. This word also carries revulsion in its root: the images are not only called abominations but are named as things to be loathed. The two different Hebrew roots intensify the contrast between the ornament’s exalted place and what fills it.
ALSO GROWS
sheqets: A detestable thing or abomination.
שֶׁקֶץ
This noun is the singular form of the word translated “detestable things.”
shaqats: To regard as detestable or loathe.
שָׁקַץ
The verb makes clear that the noun carries the sense of something treated with revulsion.
THE PATTERN
People can take what is received as splendor and fill it with images made by their own hands, replacing honor with what they have fashioned.
And he took them from their hands, and shaped it with a cutting tool, and made it into a poured calf. And they said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.Their land is also filled with nothings; they bow down to the work of their own hands, to what their own fingers have made.And they exchanged the weight of the imperishable God for an image shaped like perishable humankind, and of winged ones, four-footed ones, and crawling things.THE THREAD
Swelling goes before breaking, and a breath lifted high goes before a stumbling.The word translated “majesty” in Ezekiel and “pride” here share the Hebrew root גאה, carrying the sense of height or exaltation. Proverbs reveals the danger inside that elevation: pride can stand just before destruction.
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