What Does Ezekiel 21:32 Mean in the King James?
Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt be no more remembered: for I the LORD have spoken it.
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 verdict reaches beyond bodily destruction to erase the addressee from memory.
THE MEANING
The verse holds its verdict at full severity: its addressee becomes fuel, blood fills the land, and remembrance ends. Its final clause presents this devastation as the LORD’s spoken word.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that surviving destruction guarantees a place in memory falls away here: bodily ruin and being forgotten are named together.
THE ROOT
לְאָכְלָה
le’okhlah
GROWS FROM
אכל
eat, consume
“fuel” in this verse is le’okhlah. The Hebrew phrase pictures the addressee as food for the fire. The image makes destruction an act of consumption: the fire takes in what is given to it.
ALSO GROWS
ʾākal: to eat or consume
אָכַל
The verb gives the fire’s image its force: the addressee is what it consumes.
maʾakhal: food
מַאֲכָל
This noun shares the root and makes the fuel image concrete: what burns is treated as the fire’s food.
תִּזָּכְרִי
tizakri
GROWS FROM
זכר
remember, call to mind
“remembered” in this verse is tizakri. The same root can name both remembering and a memorial. The negation reaches beyond a passing lapse: the verse describes the loss of any continuing place in memory.
ALSO GROWS
zākhar: remember or call to mind
זָכַר
This verb is the seed of the verse’s statement that the addressee will no longer be remembered.
zikkārôn: remembrance or memorial
זִכָּרוֹן
This branch shows how remembering can take lasting form; its absence sharpens the verse’s claim of erasure.
דִּבַּרְתִּי
dibbarti
GROWS FROM
דבר
speak; word or matter
The closing clause identifies the devastation as something the LORD has spoken. The root also gives the word for a matter or utterance, binding the announced judgment to the verse’s final statement.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: speak
דִּבֵּר
This is the verb behind “have spoken,” which closes the verse with the source of the verdict.
dābār: word, matter, or thing
דָּבָר
This related noun holds speech and matter together, echoing the verse’s presentation of the spoken judgment as its subject.
THE PATTERN
Scripture portrays judgment as destruction that removes its object from public life and memory.
O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them.They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.THE THREAD
Therefore it shall be, when the LORD thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it.The same זכר (zakar, remember) root appears in “remembrance” and “forget.” This verse makes memory itself part of the judgment: a remembrance is blotted out, while the command “thou shalt not forget it” keeps that erasure in view.
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