What Does Ezekiel 20:17 Mean in the King James?
Nevertheless mine eye spared them from destroying them, neither did I make an end of them in the wilderness.
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 “end” belongs to the same root as “consume”: the wilderness does not get to finish them.
THE MEANING
This verse holds together being seen and being spared: the gaze upon you does not bring your life to an end. The wilderness may be where you are now, but being there does not mean you are already destroyed or finished.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being in a wilderness means you have been abandoned and your story is already over.
THE ROOT
כָּלָה
kalah
GROWS FROM
כלה
kalah
To be complete or finished; to bring to an end or consume.
The word rendered “end” belongs to the same family as the verb for consuming or bringing something to completion. The verse withholds that completion: the people remain in the wilderness, but are not consumed there.
ALSO GROWS
kālāh: To finish, complete, or bring to an end.
כָּלָה
This verb shares the seed of the word translated “end,” revealing that the ending withheld is also a completion that does not happen.
killāyôn: Consumption or destruction.
כִּלָּיוֹן
This related noun carries the root toward destruction, showing how the withheld end also means that total consumption is restrained.
THE PATTERN
Compassion restrains destruction and leaves life unfinished where judgment could have ended it.
It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.THE THREAD
But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them.“Consume” here comes from כלה (kalah), the same root behind “make an end” in Ezekiel 20:17. The earlier verse names the threatened completion; this verse says it does not happen, the people remain in the wilderness, but are not erased by it.
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