What Does Ezekiel 7:21 Mean?
And I will set it into the hands of strangers for plunder, and to the wicked of the land for spoil, and they shall pierce it.
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 I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall pollute it.THE KEY
The deepest wound is not only that the sacred is taken, but that its seizure treats it as common.
THE MEANING
What is cherished can be handed into outsiders’ hands as prey and spoil, and the taking is followed by profanation. The verse holds both injuries together: the thing is seized, and its set-apartness is violated.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that what is set apart cannot be violated or stripped of its meaning.
THE ROOT
וְחִלְּלוּהוּ
wəḥilləlūhū
GROWS FROM
חלל
ḥ-l-l
To profane or defile; to violate what is set apart.
“pierce” in this verse is wəḥilləlūhū. The English “pollute” can sound like dirt landing on a surface, while this Hebrew verb names a violation of set-apartness. The verse’s harm is not only that the thing is seized, but that it is handled as though it were common.
ALSO GROWS
ḥol: Common or ordinary; what is not set apart.
חֹל
This branch shows the contrast beneath “pollute”: the sacred is treated as ordinary.
ḥillul: Profanation or desecration.
חִלּוּל
This noun names the violation the verse describes: treating what is set apart as common.
וּנְתַתִּיהוּ
ūnətattîhū
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, put, or set.
“set” in this verse is ūnətattîhū. The root carries the sense of setting something somewhere as well as giving it. The verse presents the handover itself as part of the judgment: what is cherished is placed into other hands before it is profaned.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: Gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This branch shows the root’s sense of something being given from one hand to another.
natun: Given or placed.
נָתוּן
This form echoes the verse’s image of the object being set into the hands of others.
THE PATTERN
What is set apart is profaned when it is treated as common or contemptible.
Therefore everyone who eats it shall carry his crookedness, because he has pierced the set-apart thing of the LORD; and that living soul shall be cut off from among his people.But you pierce it, by your saying, the table of the Lord is soiled, and its fruit, even its food, is made light.How much worse a repayment do you suppose he will be weighed worthy of, the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has counted common the blood of the covenant by which he was set apart, and has outraged the breath of favor?THE THREAD
I will hide my face also from them, and they shall pierce my hidden place, for breakers shall enter into it and pierce it.The same Hebrew root for “pollute” appears again, now naming the profanation of the secret place itself. The verse carries the violation from the object handed over to the sacred space the robbers enter.
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