What Does Ezekiel 18:29 Mean in the King James?
Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?
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
Israel calls God’s way unmeasured, and God’s question turns that measure back onto the path they themselves walk.
THE MEANING
The verse meets the reader in the claim that God’s way is unfair, then asks whether the reader’s own way withstands the same measure. The question exposes how easily judgment of God’s way can leave one’s own choices unexamined.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
I can call God’s way unfair while treating my own way as exempt from scrutiny.
THE ROOT
יִתָּכֵן
yittakhen
GROWS FROM
תכן
t-k-n
To measure, weigh, or set to measure.
The word translated equal carries the sense of being measured or weighed. Israel’s complaint challenges God’s measure, and God’s reply asks whether their own ways can bear that same weighing.
ALSO GROWS
tokhen: Weighing or assessing.
תֹּכֵן
Proverbs 16:2 uses this form when it says the LORD weighs the inner person; the measure reaches beyond appearances and includes what lies within.
tikken: Measured or set to measure.
תִּכֵּן
Job 28:25 uses this form for measuring the waters, joining measure with proportion and order.
THE PATTERN
A judgment that challenges God’s measure turns the same scrutiny back onto the one making the judgment.
Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.THE THREAD
All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits.The word translated weigheth comes from the same root תכן (t-k-n) as equal in Ezekiel. Together, the verses show that the measure reaches the inner person, even when one’s own way looks clean.
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