What Does Ezra 9:14 Mean?
Shall we again turn back to break your commands, and marry into the peoples of these loathsome things? Would you not be angry with us until you had finished us, so that there would be no remnant and no escape?
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
Should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the people of these abominations? wouldest not thou be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us, so that there should be no remnant nor escaping?THE KEY
The Hebrew’s “again” is literally “shall we return?”, the question exposes repetition as a turning back into the breach.
THE MEANING
The question places you before the possibility of returning to the breach: making the commands void and binding yourself by marriage to people whose practices the verse calls abominations. It holds the consequence without softening it: anger that consumes until no remnant and no escape remain. The verse speaks as an alarm about what a repeated return can bring upon a people.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that returning to a breach is harmless or leaves the covenant untouched: the speaker names the possibility of consuming judgment with no remnant or escape.
THE ROOT
הֲנָשׁוּב
hanashuv
GROWS FROM
שוב
shuv
Turn back, return.
“again turn back” in this verse is hanashuv. The Hebrew does not simply add a time marker meaning “once more”; it uses the verb “return.” The verse makes turning back into the known breach its central hinge.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: Turn back, return.
שׁוּב
The verb behind “again” gives repetition a direction: the speaker asks about turning back into the breach.
teshuvah: Return, turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This related word keeps the act of returning visible as the action named in the opening question.
לְהָפֵר
lehafer
GROWS FROM
פרר
parar
Break up, frustrate, make void.
“to break your commands” in this verse is lehafer. The verb reaches beyond damage: this root can describe making a bond or command void. English “break” carries that force here, the speaker fears a return that empties the command of effect.
ALSO GROWS
hepher: Broke, annulled, made void.
הֵפֵר
This form shows the root’s force as nullifying what is binding.
huppar: Was broken, was annulled.
הֻפַּר
The passive form shows the same root describing a bond or command made void.
לְהִתְחַתֵּן
lehitḥatten
GROWS FROM
חתן
ḥatan
Form a marriage tie; become related by marriage.
“marry into” in this verse is lehitḥatten. The root’s family names both a bridegroom or son-in-law and a father-in-law, making affinity a kinship bond formed through marriage. The verse’s concern is a binding union, not mere proximity.
ALSO GROWS
ḥatan: Bridegroom, son-in-law.
חָתָן
This branch names one party in the marriage tie that “join in affinity” describes.
ḥoten: Father-in-law.
חֹתֵן
This branch names the kinship relation created through that tie.
THE PATTERN
A repeated choice can render a command or covenant void even while its words remain present.
Not according to the covenant that I cut with their fathers, on the day I gripped them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.And he shall not honor his father or mother. Thus you have emptied the commandment of God through your handing-down.THE THREAD
It is time for you, LORD, to act; they have broken your instruction.Ezra’s לְהָפֵר (lehafer, “to break”) and the Psalm’s הֵפֵרוּ (hepheru, “they made void”) share the root פרר. The Psalm states directly what Ezra’s question carries: the return threatens to make the instruction itself void.
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