What Does Ezekiel 16:25 Mean in the King James?
Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.
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 word for “way” grows from “to tread,” tying every road’s head to the repeated footfall and exposure in the verse.
THE MEANING
The verse places a high place at the head of every road, then describes exposure to each passerby and a multiplying of whoredoms. It says that this repeated public display turns what is beautiful into something treated with abhorrence. Its language is harsh and shaming, holding the cost of that exposure in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that repeated exposure leaves beauty untouched: here, beauty is made an object of abhorrence.
THE ROOT
תַּזְנוּתַיִךְ
taznuteik
GROWS FROM
זנה
z-n-h
To commit sexual infidelity; to act as a prostitute.
“whoredoms” in this verse is taznuteik. The word belongs to the זנה (zanah) family, and the verse says these acts are multiplied. The image is not of one encounter but of a pattern repeated until sexual exposure governs the scene.
ALSO GROWS
zanah: To commit fornication; to act as a prostitute.
זָנָה
The verb names the action beneath the verse’s plural charge.
zonah: A prostitute.
זוֹנָה
This noun from the same root gives the verse’s sexual imagery a person-shaped form.
דֶּרֶךְ
derek
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
To tread or step; a way is ground made into a route by passage.
The root ties the road to the act of treading it. Beside “every one that passed by” and the image of opened feet, “the head of every way” becomes a place of repeated footfall and public exposure.
ALSO GROWS
darak: To tread, step, or march.
דָּרַךְ
This verb makes the road’s connection to repeated movement audible in the verse.
midrakh: A footprint or place for treading.
מִדְרָךְ
This branch keeps the focus on ground marked by the movement of feet.
תִּפְאַרְתֵּךְ
tif'artekh
GROWS FROM
פאר
p-ʾ-r
To adorn or beautify; by extension, to make splendid or glorious.
This word carries the sense of visible splendor or adornment alongside beauty. The verse’s turn is that the splendor is not simply lost: it is made contemptible through the repeated exposure described here.
ALSO GROWS
pa'ar: To adorn, beautify, or glorify.
פָּאַר
The verb reveals the active sense beneath the beauty named in the verse.
tif'arah: Adornment, splendor, or beauty.
תִּפְאָרָה
This noun shows that the word-family includes outward display as well as beauty.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts sexual unfaithfulness as an exposure that can stain or dishonor what it touches.
Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.THE THREAD
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.The shared Hebrew word is דֶּרֶךְ (derek, “way”). Here, a high place stands at the head of every way; Isaiah speaks of a way prepared and made straight. The road itself becomes part of the revelation: a route can be crowded by repeated exposure or cleared for passage.
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