What Does Ezekiel 15:8 Mean in the King James?

And I will make the land desolate, because they have committed a trespass, saith the Lord GOD.

Ezekiel 15:8 · KJV

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 Hebrew says, in effect, “they trespassed a trespass”: the repeated root makes the breach itself visible in the land’s desolation.

THE MEANING

The verse speaks now in a severe register: the LORD makes the land desolate because of a breach of trust. The consequence reaches the shared ground people inhabit; the text does not soften the devastation or detach it from the trespass.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that a breach can stay private and leave the shared ground untouched.

THE ROOT

מַעַל

ma'al

GROWS FROM

מ־ע־ל

m-ʿ-l

To act unfaithfully; to commit a breach of trust.

The Hebrew pairs ⁨מָעֲלוּ⁩ (ma’alu, “they acted unfaithfully”) with ⁨מַעַל⁩ (ma’al, “a breach”): literally, “they trespassed a trespass.” The repeated seed makes the offense a breach of relationship, whose consequence reaches beyond the people who commit it.

ALSO GROWS

ma'al: To act treacherously or unfaithfully.

מָעַל

This is the verb in the verse’s repeated-root phrase, naming what the people do.

ma'al: A breach, trespass, or act of unfaithfulness.

מַעַל

The noun repeats the verb’s root, giving the act the shape of a breach that has become visible.

שְׁמָמָה

shemamah

GROWS FROM

שׁ־מ־ם

sh-m-m

To become desolate or be appalled by devastation.

“desolate” in this verse is shemamah. The land’s ⁨שְׁמָמָה⁩ (shemamah, “desolation”) belongs to a word family that also describes being appalled. The ruin is more than emptiness: it is devastation that leaves its witness stunned.

ALSO GROWS

shemamah: Desolation or devastation.

שְׁמָמָה

This is the condition the verse says the land enters.

shamem: To be desolate or appalled.

שָׁמֵם

This related form adds the sense of devastation so stark it produces astonishment.

THE PATTERN

Human breach does not stay private; its consequences reach the land and the life sustained within it.

The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

Isaiah 24:5 · KJVHuman covenant-breaking is named as the cause of the earth’s defilement.

Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.

Hosea 4:3 · KJVThe land and its creatures bear the consequence in their mourning and languishing.

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

Romans 8:22 · KJVThe whole creation is described as groaning, so the reach of anguish extends beyond human experience.

THE THREAD

Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it:

Ezekiel 14:13 · KJV

This verse uses the same root, ⁨מָעַל⁩ (ma’al, “to act unfaithfully”), in “trespassing grievously,” then shows the breach reaching bread, famine, people, and animals. Ezekiel 15:8 widens that consequence to the land itself.

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