What Does Ezra 10:19 Mean?
And they gave their hands that they would bring out their wives, and being guilty, they brought near a ram from the flock for their guilt.
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 they gave their hands that they would put away their wives; and being guilty, they offered a ram of the flock for their trespass.THE KEY
One Hebrew root names both their guilt and the offering for it, while the wives’ removal remains plainly beside that ritual act.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a pledge, the putting away of wives, and a ram offered for guilt in one frame. In Hebrew, the same root names their guilty state and the guilt for which the ram is offered. The act of sending their wives away remains beside the offering, unabsorbed by it.
THE ROOT
אֲשֵׁמִים
ʾăšēmîm
GROWS FROM
א־ש־ם
ʾ-sh-m
To incur guilt or be liable; as a noun, guilt or a guilt offering.
The root appears in both “being guilty” and “their trespass,” then also names the guilt offering associated with the ram. Liability and its ritual response share one seed, while the wives’ removal remains explicit in the verse.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāšēm: To be guilty or liable.
אָשֵׁם
This is the form behind “being guilty,” naming their condition directly.
ʾāšām: Guilt; also a guilt offering.
אָשָׁם
This branch links the guilt named in the verse with the ram offered on its account.
THE PATTERN
Guilt reaches beyond its ritual response to the wrong that remains in view.
And they said to one another, We are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw the narrow place of his living soul when he pleaded with us for favor, and we did not hear and respond. Therefore this narrow place has come upon us.If a living soul acts treacherously and misses the mark through straying in the set-apart things of the LORD, then he brings to the LORD a whole ram from the flock, by your valuation in silver shekels, by the set-apart shekel, as a guilt offering.For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats could lift away shortcomings.THE THREAD
If a living soul acts treacherously and misses the mark through straying in the set-apart things of the LORD, then he brings to the LORD a whole ram from the flock, by your valuation in silver shekels, by the set-apart shekel, as a guilt offering.Ezra’s “guilty” and “trespass” come from א־ש־ם (ʾ-sh-m), the same root behind Leviticus’s “trespass offering.” Leviticus makes the ram’s ritual role explicit; Ezra places that offering beside the act of sending the wives away, leaving its human cost visible.
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