What Does Ezekiel 16:21 Mean in the King James?
That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?
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 word translated “delivered” comes from נתן (natan), “give, set, place”: the verse names a deliberate handing over as part of the violence.
THE MEANING
The verse confronts you with a deliberate act: children are slaughtered, then handed over to be made to pass through fire. The handoff does not soften the killing; the children remain “my children” as they are given to others.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that religious dedication can turn the killing of a child into a holy act.
THE ROOT
וַתִּתְּנִי
vattitteni
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
give, set, place
“delivered” in this verse is vattitteni. Here, vattitteni (“you gave”) makes the act a deliberate transfer: the children are placed into the fire rite. The same root forms words for a gift, exposing the grim shape of devotion that treats a child as something to hand over.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: gift
מַתָּנָה
This branch makes the language of giving especially stark beside the children being handed over.
netinah: giving, bestowal
נְתִינָה
It echoes the deliberate transfer expressed by the verb in this verse.
וַתִּשְׁחֲטִי
vattishchati
GROWS FROM
שׁחט
sh-ḥ-ṭ
slaughter
The verb is built on the word for slaughter, giving “slain” the concrete image of butchery. Beside natan (“give”), it leaves both acts in view: the killing and the deliberate handoff.
ALSO GROWS
shachat: to slaughter
שָׁחַט
This is the verb’s root form and keeps the verse’s violence explicit.
shechitah: slaughtering
שְׁחִיטָה
This related noun carries the same direct, physical sense of killing.
לְהַעֲבִירָם
leha'aviram
GROWS FROM
עבר
ʿ-b-r
pass over, cross
“to cause them to pass through” in this verse is leha'aviram. Leha’aviram is a causative form: you make them cross. The root names movement across a threshold, but here the crossing is imposed through fire and on children.
ALSO GROWS
avar: to pass over, cross
עָבַר
This verb gives the phrase its sense of movement across or through.
ma'avar: passage, crossing
מַעֲבָר
This noun from the same root makes the forced passage through fire visible as a route imposed on them.
THE PATTERN
When devotion turns a child’s life into a gift for a god, scripture exposes the act as violence rather than reverence.
Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils,THE THREAD
And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.Both verses use forms of עבר (avar), “cross, pass over,” for the children’s forced movement through fire. The repeated root names a crossing imposed on them, while Ezekiel makes the handing over explicit with נתן (natan), “give, set, place.”
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