What Does Ezekiel 9:5 Mean?
And to the others he said in my ears, Pass after him through the city and strike. Do not let your eye hold back, and do not have pity.
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 to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:THE KEY
The Hebrew forbids mercy twice, first as sparing, then as pity, so the absence of compassion is part of the command itself.
THE MEANING
The command is blunt: the agents strike through the city, and neither sparing nor pity may interrupt the blow. Its violence is not softened by a mercy clause; the verse names judgment as an action carried through without compassion.
THE ROOT
תַּחְמֹלוּ
taḥmōlû
GROWS FROM
חמל
ḥ-m-l
to pity, spare, or have compassion
“pity” in this verse is taḥmōlû. Here the word names compassion as a response that could spare someone, while the command explicitly bars it. The adjacent prohibition against sparing names both the compassionate response and the act of restraint.
ALSO GROWS
ḥemlāh: compassion, pity
חֶמְלָה
This noun makes explicit the compassion that the command prohibits.
wattaḥmōl: and she had compassion
וַתַּחְמֹל
This verb form shows the same root as an act of compassion that can arise toward another.
תָּחֹס
taḥōs
GROWS FROM
חוס
ḥ-w-s
to spare, show regard for, or have pity
“hold back” in this verse is taḥōs. The verb can carry both the sense of sparing and of having regard or compassion. Beside “pity,” it marks a second prohibition: neither sparing nor compassionate regard is to stop the strike.
ALSO GROWS
ḥūs: spare, pity
חוּס
This verb form carries the same range of regard and sparing that is forbidden here.
yāḥūs: he will spare, he will have pity
יָחוּס
The same root can describe the act of sparing that this command rules out.
הַכּוּ
hakkû
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
to strike or smite
“strike” in this verse is hakkû. The same root names the action of striking and the blow that results from it. The verse therefore places physical force at its center; its prohibitions on pity and sparing do not conceal what the agents are ordered to do.
ALSO GROWS
makkāh: a blow, wound, or plague
מַכָּה
The noun makes the ordered strike concrete as a blow.
makkēh: one who strikes; striking
מַכֶּה
This form names the striker or the act of striking from the same root as the command.
THE PATTERN
When judgment is declared, scripture can state the withholding of compassion as part of its execution.
You shall devour all the peoples the LORD your God will give you. Your eye shall not spare them, and you shall not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.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.For if God did not hold back from the branches of their own growth, watch that he does not hold back from you either.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.The same Hebrew roots for “spare” and “pity” return together, with the eye named again. Here the declaration continues into recompense, revealing the severity carried by that repeated pair.
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