What Does Ezekiel 20:32 Mean in the King James?
And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.
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 thought rising on your ruach, your breath, rendered “mind” here, is a wish to become like the nations, and the verse says this will not be.
THE MEANING
The wish rising within your breath, to become like the surrounding peoples and serve wood and stone, does not become your reality. The verse names a desire for likeness through allegiance, then says that imagined future will not stand.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you can become like others by adopting what they serve.
THE ROOT
רוּחֲכֶם
ruachkem
GROWS FROM
ר־ו־ח
r-w-ḥ
Wind or breath; in this phrase, “your ruach” means your mind or inner disposition.
KJV renders this occurrence “mind,” but Hebrew uses the same word, ruach, for wind and breath. The wish is pictured rising upon the living breath itself, not as a thought cut off from the person.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: wind
רוּחַ
The same Hebrew word can name wind, so the thought here carries the image of something moving within you.
ruach: breath
רוּחַ
This is the project’s established sense of ruach; here the wish rises upon “your breath.”
ruach: spirit or inner disposition
רוּחַ
This sense helps explain why the KJV renders the word “mind” in this phrase.
הָעֹלָה
ha-‘olah
GROWS FROM
ע־ל־ה
ʿ-l-h
To rise, ascend, or go up.
“cometh” in this verse is ha-‘olah. The Hebrew phrase calls it “the thing rising” upon your ruach. This root of ascent pictures the wish as an impulse coming up within you, then the verse says it will not come to be.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: to rise or go up
עָלָה
This verb gives the phrase its image of a thought rising within you.
ʿolah: a burnt offering, literally something that goes up
עֹלָה
The related word carries the same rising image; here what rises is a wish rather than an offering.
THE PATTERN
What you serve shapes the likeness you take.
They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them.Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.THE THREAD
Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:The same Hebrew word רוּחַ (ruach), meaning breath, appears as “mind” in this verse and “breath” in Ezekiel 37:5. Here a wish rises upon ruach; there ruach enters the bones and they live, setting the breath that gives life against service directed toward lifeless wood and stone.
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