What Does Ezekiel 15:4 Mean in the King James?
Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel; the fire devoureth both the ends of it, and the midst of it is burned. Is it meet for any work?
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
The fire reaches the center too, leaving no hidden core of usefulness.
THE MEANING
This verse names what total consumption looks like: the fire eats both ends and chars the middle, leaving the whole piece unable to accomplish work. Its question asks whether anything can still succeed at a task, and the image shows that the fire has reached through it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that damage at the edges leaves a usable center: here the fire reaches the middle too.
THE ROOT
יִצְלַח
yitslaḥ
GROWS FROM
צלח
Advance, prosper, succeed.
The root behind “meet” asks whether the wood can advance, succeed, or accomplish anything at all. The question reaches beyond suitability: the fire has erased its capacity to carry any work forward.
ALSO GROWS
tsalach: Advance, prosper, succeed.
צָלַח
It reveals the force inside “meet”: can any task still move ahead through this wood?
hitzliach: Cause to prosper; make succeed.
הִצְלִיחַ
This causative form names the capacity to bring a task to success, the capacity the charred wood no longer has.
לְאָכְלָה
le'okhlah akhlah
GROWS FROM
אכל
Eat, consume.
“for fuel; devoureth” in this verse is le'okhlah akhlah. The verse uses the same אכל seed for wood given “for fuel” and for the fire that “devoureth” it. The fire is called the eater, and the wood its food: burning is pictured as eating.
ALSO GROWS
akhal: Eat, consume.
אָכַל
This is the action the fire performs when it devours the wood’s ends.
okhel: Food.
אֹכֶל
The wood is given over as the fire’s food, so its use in this image is consumption.
THE PATTERN
When a branch is reduced to firewood, its former usefulness cannot survive the burning.
The LORD called thy name, A green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit: with the noise of a great tumult he hath kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it are broken.If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.THE THREAD
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.Joshua uses this same צלח root in “prosperous” and “success”; Ezekiel uses it in the question translated “meet.” The shared word makes the question sharper: can the charred wood still advance into any work, or has the fire consumed that capacity?
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