What Does Ezekiel 20:30 Mean in the King James?
Wherefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Are ye polluted after the manner of your fathers? and commit ye whoredom after their abominations?
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 charge is not only that you come from a polluted past, but that you are walking its path and repeating its unfaithfulness now.
THE MEANING
The question addresses you in the present: an old pattern becomes yours as you enact it, so what you practice now is exposed alongside what you inherited. Defilement and unfaithful attachment appear together, showing how a repeated path shapes what you give yourself to.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a pattern becomes innocent simply because it was handed down; inheritance explains its beginning, while repetition makes it a present act.
THE ROOT
נִטְמְאִים
nitme'im
GROWS FROM
טמא
ṭ-m-ʾ
To be or become unclean; to defile.
“polluted” in this verse is nitme'im. The Hebrew describes the people as defiled, and the root also names the state of uncleanness itself. The verse connects that condition to a path they are actively continuing, not just to the past they came from.
ALSO GROWS
tame: Unclean; defiled.
טָמֵא
Names the condition the verse says they are in.
tum'ah: Uncleanness; impurity.
טֻמְאָה
Shows that the root can name not only an act of defiling but the resulting state.
זֹנִים
zonim
GROWS FROM
זנה
z-n-h
To act as a prostitute or be sexually unfaithful.
“commit ye whoredom” in this verse is zonim. The root gives the verse’s charge a relational force: the people are not merely repeating customs, but turning their allegiance toward what the verse calls their fathers’ abominations. The same root appears in Hosea’s image of going astray from God.
ALSO GROWS
zonah: A prostitute.
זֹנָה
Shows the concrete image behind the verse’s language of whoredom.
zenunim: Whoredoms; acts of prostitution or unfaithfulness.
זְנוּנִים
Names a pattern of repeated unfaithfulness, echoing the verse’s emphasis on doing what came before.
בְּדֶרֶךְ
baderekh
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
To tread or make a path.
“manner / way” in this verse is baderekh. Where the KJV says “after the manner” of the fathers, the Hebrew speaks of being in their way. The path is something trodden, and the people are now walking it themselves.
ALSO GROWS
derekh: A way, road, or manner of conduct.
דֶּרֶךְ
Makes the inherited pattern a path the present generation is taking.
darakh: To tread, step, or march.
דָּרַךְ
Carries the physical image of repeatedly stepping along a path.
THE PATTERN
A pattern that began before you becomes your own when you keep walking in it.
And ye have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me:My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.THE THREAD
Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions.This verse uses the same Hebrew roots for “defiled” (טמא, tame) and “went a whoring” (זנה, zanah). It places those conditions beside the people’s own deeds, bringing the inherited pattern into the choices they make now.
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