What Does Ezekiel 12:18 Mean in the King James?
Son of man, eat thy bread with quaking, and drink thy water with trembling and with carefulness;
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Terror has entered the body’s ordinary receiving: bread is eaten and water drunk through trembling.
THE MEANING
Here, bread and water are received while the body shakes and anxious care fills the moment. Threat reaches the acts that sustain life, so fear is felt in the body as well as in thought.
THE ROOT
דְּאָגָה
de'agah
GROWS FROM
דאג
dāʾag
To be anxious, troubled, or concerned.
KJV’s “carefulness” carries the sense of anxious care: the bread and water are received inside anxiety. The same noun appears in Ezekiel 4:16, where people eat bread “with care,” linking this word to provision experienced under distress.
ALSO GROWS
dāʾag: To be anxious or troubled.
דָּאַג
The verb names the anxious state that this verse makes part of eating and drinking.
de'agah: Anxiety, anxious care.
דְּאָגָה
This noun is rendered “carefulness” here and “care” in Ezekiel 4:16.
רְעָדָה
re'adah
GROWS FROM
רעד
ra'ad
To tremble or quake.
The quaking is not just a thought about danger; it is a shaking that accompanies the act of eating. Nourishment is still received, but the body receives it without a sense of safety.
ALSO GROWS
ra'ad: To tremble or quake.
רָעַד
The verb names the bodily shaking present in the verse’s image.
re'adah: Trembling, quaking.
רְעָדָה
This noun gives the shaking a place alongside the bread being eaten.
רְגָזָה
ragazah
GROWS FROM
רגז
ragaz
To tremble, quake, or become agitated.
This root describes agitation as well as trembling, giving the verse a sense of disturbance that moves through the person. The water is drunk while that agitation remains present.
ALSO GROWS
ragaz: To tremble, quake, or become agitated.
רָגַז
The verb shows that the trembling is an active disturbance, not merely a description of mood.
rogez: Agitation, turmoil.
רֹגֶז
This related noun carries the sense of unrest that colors the act of drinking.
THE PATTERN
Distress enters ordinary nourishment, making eating and drinking register the body’s sense of threat or security.
Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?THE THREAD
Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:The word de’agah (דְּאָגָה, anxious care) behind “carefulness” here also appears as “care” in Ezekiel 4:16. The shared word ties trembling at the table to a wider picture of provision received under distress.
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