What Does Ezekiel 18:31 Mean in the King James?
Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
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 same passage that names rebellion twice gives you verbs for casting it off and making the inner life new.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you as capable of casting away the rebellion you carry and making a new heart and breath within yourself. It asks why you die while naming that inward change as possible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that past rebellion has permanently fixed your nature and made death unavoidable.
THE ROOT
פִּשְׁעֵיכֶם
pisheikhem
GROWS FROM
פשע
pasha
To break away; to rebel.
The verse repeats this root in both the noun translated “transgressions” and the verb translated “transgressed.” English can make them sound like separate items and actions, while the Hebrew binds them as one pattern of rebellion that can be cast away.
ALSO GROWS
pasha: To rebel; to break away.
פָּשַׁע
The verse uses this verb for the repeated act named by the noun “transgressions.”
pesha: Rebellion; a breakaway.
פֶּשַׁע
This noun is the seed of the plural in the verse, framing the things cast away as rebellion.
poshea: A rebel; one who breaks away.
פֹּשֵׁעַ
This branch names the one acting in rebellion, extending the root from deeds to the person caught in the pattern.
חֲדָשָׁה
chadashah
GROWS FROM
חדש
chadash
To be new; to renew.
The same word for “new” modifies both the heart and the breath. Its root also gives Hebrew a verb for renewal and the word for a month, linking newness with recurring freshness rather than a single fixed state.
ALSO GROWS
chadash: New.
חָדָשׁ
This is the masculine form of the adjective used for the heart’s newness.
chiddesh: Renewed; made new.
חִדֵּשׁ
This verb shows the root’s movement from newness to renewal.
chodesh: Month; new moon.
חֹדֶשׁ
The word connects newness with the recurring appearance of the moon at the start of a month.
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
ruach
Breath; moving air or wind; inward life.
The Hebrew word translated “spirit” also means breath and wind. Here a new ruach joins inward life to the breath moving through a living body, a connection English can split into separate ideas.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Breath, wind, or inward spirit.
רוּחַ
This single word carries the bodily and inward dimensions together in the verse.
ruchot: Winds; breaths; spirits.
רוּחוֹת
The plural preserves the same word across the moving air and inward presences English often names separately.
THE PATTERN
Renewal joins the removal of an old inner pattern with the emergence of a new heart and breath.
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.THE THREAD
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.The Hebrew root חָדַשׁ (chadash, to be new or renew) appears in Ezekiel’s “new” and the psalm’s “renew.” The two verses show renewal reaching both the heart and the ruach, the breath and inward life within.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us