What Does Ezekiel 7:22 Mean?
I will hide my face also from them, and they shall pierce my hidden place, for breakers shall enter into it and 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
My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it.THE KEY
The intruders are “breakers-through,” so the verse pictures desecration as a violent breach of the hidden place.
THE MEANING
When the LORD turns his face away, the hidden sanctuary is exposed to violent breach; the verse holds divine withdrawal and desecration together. The sacred place is entered by force and profaned, without softening the violence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a place set apart for God cannot be reached or violated by violence.
THE ROOT
פָרִיצִים
paritsim
GROWS FROM
פרץ
parats
Break through, break out, or burst into a breach.
English “robbers” can sound like theft after entry; פָרִיצִים (paritsim, violent breakers) carries the force of those who break in. Their entrance into צְפוּנִי (tsephuni, the hidden place) is already an act of violence before the repeated profaning.
ALSO GROWS
parits: A violent or insolent person; here, one who breaks in.
פָּרִיץ
The intruder is named by the force of the breach, not merely by taking property.
perets: A breach or breaking forth.
פֶּרֶץ
The breach is the opening made by breaking through; the root makes the entry itself part of the violence.
חִלְּלוּ
chillelu
GROWS FROM
חלל
chalal
Profane or make common what is set apart.
“pierce” in this verse is chillelu. The repeated חִלְּלוּ (chillelu, they profaned) names this as desecration, not mere dirt. The root connects profaning with making common, so what is violated is the place’s set-apartness.
ALSO GROWS
chol: Common or ordinary; outside what is set apart.
חֹל
This makes visible the boundary profanation crosses: the set-apart thing is rendered common.
hillul: Profanation or desecration.
חִלּוּל
This noun names the action described twice in the verse, tying the intruders’ violence to desecration.
צְפוּנִי
tsephuni
GROWS FROM
צפן
tsaphan
Hide, store up, or treasure.
“hidden place” in this verse is tsephuni. The KJV’s “secret place” draws on a word for what is hidden or stored up. The scene carries a double violation: intruders force their way into a place marked by concealment and then profane it.
ALSO GROWS
tsaphan: To hide, store up, or treasure.
צָפַן
The root gives the place its character as something concealed or kept in reserve.
tsafun: Hidden or concealed.
צָפוּן
This branch echoes the hidden quality of the place the intruders enter.
THE PATTERN
The place set apart for God can be profaned when it is entered or treated as common.
They send fire into your set-apart place; they defile the dwelling place of your name down to the ground.His arms stand on his side, and they pierce the set-apart place of strength. They take away the continual drawing near, and they set the loathsome thing that empties it.If anyone ruins the temple of God, God will ruin him, for God's temple is set apart, and you are that temple.THE THREAD
They send fire into your set-apart place; they defile the dwelling place of your name down to the ground.Psalm 74:7 uses the same Hebrew root חלל (chalal, to profane or make common) as the repeated “pollute” and “defile” in this verse. It shows the same violation at the scale of a sanctuary burned and its dwelling place cast down.
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