What Does Ezekiel 16:23 Mean in the King James?
And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord GOD;)
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 names the offense as harm and answers it with a doubled cry of anguish: evil is made audible before God.
THE MEANING
Where harm accumulates, it does not become weightless before God; this verse names its consequence as woe twice. The doubled cry makes anguish and judgment audible now, without softening either.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wrongdoing becomes inconsequential once it is done: the verse names the accumulated harm and declares woe over it twice.
THE ROOT
רָעָתֵךְ
raʿāṯēḵ
GROWS FROM
רָעַע
To be bad or act harmfully.
רָעָתֵךְ (raʿāṯēḵ, your wickedness) belongs to the רָע (raʿ, bad or evil) word family, whose verbal root רָעַע (raʿaʿ, be bad or act harmfully) names the condition by its damaging character. The doubled אֹוי (ʾôy, woe or anguish) makes the outcome audible: the harm is not a neutral label but a cry of distress.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad, evil.
רַע
This adjective shows that “wickedness” belongs to a word family that names what is harmful or bad.
raʿāh: Evil, harm, wickedness.
רָעָה
This is the noun form used here with the suffix “your”; the verse names an accumulated condition, not merely an abstract label.
THE PATTERN
Scripture’s cry of woe exposes the harm hidden by inversion, negligent care, or seeming security.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.THE THREAD
And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.Genesis uses the same רָע (raʿ, evil) word family as Ezekiel’s “wickedness.” The shared root lets the word carry the sense of harm, while Ezekiel’s doubled cry gives that harm a voice.
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