What Does Ezekiel 20:42 Mean in the King James?
And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I lifted up mine hand to give it to your fathers.
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 promise does not merely bring you to a place; its fulfillment makes the promiser known.
THE MEANING
You recognize the LORD as the one whose promise becomes the ground beneath you. The raised hand carries the shape of an oath: what is pledged is brought within reach and given. Knowing here is recognition through a promise fulfilled.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that knowing God means only agreeing with a statement about God gives way to knowing through what you experience.
THE ROOT
וִידַעְתֶּם
wiydaʿtem
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know, recognize, or perceive through acquaintance or experience.
The root can describe more than collecting information: it can name recognition through encounter. Here, you know the LORD as the promise takes shape in your life.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: knowledge, awareness
דַּעַת
Knowledge belongs to the same word family as the knowing in this verse, linking recognition to lived awareness.
nodaʿ: known, recognized
נוֹדָע
The same root can describe what is recognized, bringing the knower and the known into one relationship.
אַדְמַת
admat
GROWS FROM
אדם
ʾ-d-m
The word in the verse is adamah, meaning ground or soil; it shares its word family with Adam, the ground-being.
“land” in this verse is admat. The verse names the destination as the soil of Israel, giving the promise a tangible ground beneath it. The word echoes Adam, so the human and the ground meet in the language itself.
ALSO GROWS
adamah: ground, soil
אֲדָמָה
This is the word family behind the verse’s phrase for the soil of Israel.
adam: human, the ground-being
אָדָם
The shared word family links the human with the ground into which the promise brings you.
נָשָׂאתִי
nasaʾti
GROWS FROM
נשא
n-ś-ʾ
To lift, carry, or bear.
“lifted up” in this verse is nasaʾti. The hand raised here is the gesture of a pledged oath. The root also carries the sense of bearing, so the promise is not a fleeting gesture: it is borne through to its fulfillment.
ALSO GROWS
massa: burden, load
מַשָּׂא
A burden is something carried; this branch makes the root’s sense of bearing visible.
nasi: prince, leader
נָשִׂיא
This related word carries the sense of one lifted up, echoing the raised hand that marks the pledge.
THE PATTERN
Knowing the LORD arrives as a promise becomes a lived reality.
And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD.At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.THE THREAD
And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.The word for know here shares the root yadaʿ with Ezekiel’s promise that you shall know the LORD. Jeremiah places that knowing in the heart, joining recognition of God with a relationship that is lived from within.
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