What Does Ezekiel 18:18 Mean in the King James?
As for his father, because he cruelly oppressed, spoiled his brother by violence, and did that which is not good among his people, lo, even he shall die in his iniquity.
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 he “robbed a robbery”: violence is not incidental to the taking; it is the taking.
THE MEANING
His father takes from his own brother, does what is not good among his people, and dies in his own crookedness. Kinship does not turn exploitation into care, and the wrongdoing remains his own.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that closeness or power makes exploitation permissible: taking from a brother is still harm, and the one who does it answers for his own crookedness.
THE ROOT
גָזַל
gāzal
GROWS FROM
גזל
To rob, seize, or take by force.
The Hebrew pairs גָזַל (gāzal, rob) with גֵּזֶל (gēzel, robbery), repeating the same root. English spreads that echo across “spoiled ... by violence,” while Hebrew keeps the act and the robbery bound together.
ALSO GROWS
gēzel: The robbery itself.
גֵּזֶל
This cognate noun follows the verb in the Hebrew line, making the taking itself visible as robbery.
gĕzēlāh: Goods or property taken by force.
גְּזֵלָה
The branch keeps the concrete loss inside the same root as the act that caused it.
עָשַׁק
ʿāšaq
GROWS FROM
עשק
To press upon, exploit, or defraud.
The Hebrew echoes עָשַׁק עֹשֶׁק (ʿāšaq ʿōšeq), literally “oppressed oppression.” The repeated root keeps exploitation itself in view, where English describes it as “cruelly oppressed.”
ALSO GROWS
ʿōšeq: Oppression or extortion itself.
עֹשֶׁק
This noun repeats the root of the verb in the verse, binding the father’s act to the harm it names.
ʿāšûq: A person bearing the pressure or loss caused by oppression.
עָשׁוּק
The root can name the one doing the exploiting and the person bearing its cost.
THE PATTERN
When one person’s gain is built by coercively taking from another, the harm remains visible and the taker is answerable.
And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates:The same root, עָשַׁק (ʿāšaq, oppress or defraud), names the father’s act here and the act forbidden there. Ezekiel names a brother as the one harmed; Deuteronomy makes clear that the same oppression reaches a worker, whether kin or stranger.
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