What Does Ezekiel 8:5 Mean?
Then he said to me, Son of man, lift your eyes now along the way toward the north. So I lifted my eyes that way, toward the north, and behold, northward at the gate of the altar, this image of jealousy at the entrance.
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
Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.THE KEY
The image’s place at the altar’s entrance makes the threshold itself the evidence of a rival claim.
THE MEANING
The gaze is brought to the threshold, where an image stands in the entry and is named by the jealousy it provokes. Proximity to the altar does not settle what a presence serves; the threshold can disclose a divided claim.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that whatever stands at the entrance of the sacred must belong there.
THE ROOT
קִנְאָה
qin’ah
GROWS FROM
קנא
To be zealous or jealous; to hold an ardent claim.
English can make jealousy sound like a private feeling, but קִנְאָה names an ardent, relational claim. At the altar’s entry, the image is bound to the zeal or jealousy it provokes, so the threshold becomes a place where belonging is contested.
ALSO GROWS
qānāʾ: To be zealous or jealous.
קָנָא
The verb names the active force behind the jealousy: an ardent claim, not merely a passing feeling.
qannāʾ: Jealous, zealous.
קַנָּא
This form describes the LORD as jealous in Exodus 34:14, showing that the same root can name zeal over a bond.
THE PATTERN
What occupies the threshold of devotion reveals where allegiance is being contested.
You shall have no other gods before my face.Son of man, these men have lifted up their idols upon their heart, and set the stumbling block of their crookedness before their face. Should I be sought at all by them?Little children, guard yourselves from idols. Amen.THE THREAD
For you shall not bow down to another god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.The word translated “jealous” comes from the same root, קנא, as קִנְאָה in Ezekiel 8:5. That root names both the LORD’s zeal and the jealousy provoked by the image, placing the contested bond at the center of the scene.
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