What Does Ezra 10:10 Mean?
And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, You have broken trust, and have taken foreign women, to add to the guilt of Israel.
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 Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel.THE KEY
The verse distinguishes the breach from the guilt it adds, then makes the result communal: one act becomes part of Israel’s growing liability.
THE MEANING
Here, taking foreign wives is named as a breach, and that breach adds to Israel’s guilt. The verse speaks now of how one act can deepen a community’s shared liability.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a choice can remain contained within the chooser: the verse says the act increases the trespass borne by Israel.
THE ROOT
מְעַלְתֶּם
maʿaltem
GROWS FROM
מעל
m-ʿ-l
To act unfaithfully; to breach trust.
“have broken trust” in this verse is maʿaltem. The English pair “transgressed/trespass” sounds like one idea repeated, but maʿal names the breach while ashamat (אַשְׁמַת, ʾashmat, guilt or liability) names what accrues from it. Ezra (עֶזְרָא, ʿEzra, “help”), from ʿazar (עָזַר, “to help”), speaks by naming that breach as a form of help through exposure.
ALSO GROWS
maʿal: To act unfaithfully or breach trust.
מָעַל
This verbal sense is the root behind “ye have transgressed.”
maʿal: A breach or act of unfaithfulness.
מַעַל
Joshua 7:1 uses this root family when it names a trespass whose effects reach Israel.
אַשְׁמַת
ʾashmat
GROWS FROM
אשם
ʾ-sh-m
To incur guilt or become liable.
Here the noun identifies guilt that can be incurred, not simply the act that caused it. The liability belongs to Israel (יִשְׂרָאֵל, Yisraʾel; the name is explained as “one who strives with God” in Genesis 32:28), so the sentence makes an act legible as a people’s burden.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāshēm: Guilty; liable.
אָשֵׁם
This form shows the state of liability carried by the word “trespass.”
ʾāshām: Guilt or a reparation offering.
אָשָׁם
The same root links guilt with the response that addresses what is owed.
לְהוֹסִיף
lehosif
GROWS FROM
יסף
y-s-p
To add, increase, or continue.
“add to” in this verse is lehosif. The culpability is represented as growing through addition. The same root appears in Yosef (יוֹסֵף, Yōsēf), whose name is linked with “may he add” in Genesis 30:24.
ALSO GROWS
yāsaph: To add, increase, or do again.
יָסַף
This is the root of the verb translated “to increase.”
Yōsēf: Joseph; the name is linked with “may he add.”
יוֹסֵף
The name preserves the same root of adding that marks the growing liability here.
THE PATTERN
A breach can spread from an act into the shared condition of a whole people.
But the children of Israel broke trust with the devoted thing, for Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took from the devoted thing, and the burning of the LORD's anger flared against the children of Israel.For the LORD brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he let Judah run loose, and transgressed sore against the LORD.Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?THE THREAD
But the children of Israel broke trust with the devoted thing, for Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took from the devoted thing, and the burning of the LORD's anger flared against the children of Israel.Joshua 7:1 uses maʿal (מָעַל, breach or act unfaithfully), the same root as “transgressed” here. In both verses, an act attributed to particular people is named as a breach carried by Israel, showing how liability reaches beyond the act itself.
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