What Does Ezekiel 22:11 Mean in the King James?
And one hath committed abomination with his neighbour’s wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter in law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father’s daughter.
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 closing “in thee” makes sexual violation a wound inside the community, not merely an act between two people.
THE MEANING
This verse names sexual betrayal and violation as harm that enters the community, not an event sealed between individuals. The verb translated “humbled” carries the sense of afflicting and violating; the sister is the one acted upon. The final “in thee” places that harm within the community itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that sexual harm is private and leaves everyone else untouched: the verse locates these acts “in thee.”
THE ROOT
עִנָּה
ʿinnâ
GROWS FROM
ענה
To afflict, humble, or bring low; in sexual contexts, to violate.
The verb holds affliction inside the act: “humbled” here describes imposed harm, not a condition the sister chooses. Its use for sexual violation makes the injury visible within the word itself.
ALSO GROWS
ʿinnûy: Affliction, humiliation
עִנּוּי
This noun names the harm as affliction, carrying the verb’s force of injury into view.
ʿānî: Afflicted, poor
עָנִי
This word can describe a person brought low, echoing the condition imposed by the act in the verse.
THE PATTERN
When sexual boundaries are violated, Scripture names the harm as something the surrounding community bears.
And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.Howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice: but, being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her.It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.THE THREAD
And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.Genesis uses the same Hebrew root, ענה (ʿānâ), for what is done to Dinah. The shared root holds affliction and imposed violation inside Ezekiel’s word “humbled.”
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