What Does Ezekiel 9:10 Mean?
And as for me also, my eye will not hold back, and I will not have pity. I will set their way upon their head.
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 as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head.THE KEY
The Hebrew says, “their way upon their head I have given”, judgment arrives as the very path they made, placed upon them.
THE MEANING
The verse holds an uncompromising judgment: the eye does not spare, and pity does not intervene. A person’s way stands upon them as what is given back.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that one’s chosen way leaves no answerable trace is undone here: the way itself is placed upon the head.
THE ROOT
נָתַתִּי
nātattî
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
“I will set” in this verse is nātattî. The verb the KJV renders “recompense” literally means “I have given.” The verse pictures their way itself as what is placed upon their head: what comes upon them is their own way, given to them.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: to give
נָתַן
This is the root’s basic action; here, the thing given is their way upon their head.
mattānāh: gift
מַתָּנָה
This related noun shows the root’s sense of something given; in the verse, what is given is their own way.
THE PATTERN
A person’s way returns upon them as its consequence.
Therefore they eat from the fruit of their way, and they are filled with their own counsel.For they sow breath, and they will reap the whirlwind. It has no stalk. The sprout will yield no meal. If it yields, strangers will swallow it up.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
And my eye will not spare you, and I will have no pity. I will set your ways upon you, and your sickening things shall be in your midst, and you shall perceive that I am the LORD.Ezekiel 7:4 repeats the unsparing eye and absence of pity, then uses the same נתן (n-t-n, give, set, place) root for what the KJV calls “recompense.” The parallel makes the image plain: the way itself is what is given upon the person.
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