What Does Ezekiel 23:37 Mean in the King James?
That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them.
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 repeated adultery charge is made bodily: it leaves blood on hands and ends with children rendered as food.
THE MEANING
This verse holds betrayal, bloodshed, and the consumption of children in one frame. It speaks now wherever allegiance makes vulnerable lives expendable; the verse leaves the blood and the children visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that devotion can sanctify what it does to the vulnerable: the blood remains on their hands, and the children remain the ones being consumed.
THE ROOT
הֶעֱבִירוּ
heʿĕvîrû
GROWS FROM
עבר
ʿ-b-r
To cross or pass over; in the causative, to make someone pass over or through.
“caused to pass” in this verse is heʿĕvîrû. The Hebrew causative does not merely say the sons pass; it says they are made to pass. The root can also name a crossing or passage, so this is an inflicted passage through fire, not the children’s choice.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: To cross, pass over
עָבַר
This base verb supplies the movement at the center of the phrase; here the causative makes others undergo it.
maʿavār: Crossing, passage
מַעֲבָר
The noun names a passage, while the verse’s verb makes the children undergo passage through fire.
נָאָפוּ
nāʾăfû
GROWS FROM
נאף
n-ʾ-p
To commit adultery; to betray a sexual bond.
“committed adultery” in this verse is nāʾăfû. The Hebrew repeats the same verb before and after naming the idols: betrayal is the passage’s refrain. That language stands beside bloodshed and children sacrificed, binding the charge to its bodily consequences.
ALSO GROWS
nāʾaf: To commit adultery
נָאַף
This is the verb repeated in the verse’s two accusations.
nōʾēf: Adulterer
נֹאֵף
The person-form names the one who commits the act, echoing the verse’s repeated charge of betrayal.
לְאָכְלָה
leʾokhlāh
GROWS FROM
אכל
ʾ-k-l
To eat or consume.
The final Hebrew phrase means “for eating,” and the KJV’s “devour” carries that force. The sentence ends by naming the children as food, making the cost of allegiance starkly physical.
ALSO GROWS
ʾākal: To eat, consume
אָכַל
This verb names the act that the verse places at the end of the children’s passage through fire.
maʾakhāl: Food, something to eat
מַאֲכָל
This noun from the same root makes clear the consumption implied by the final phrase.
THE PATTERN
What an allegiance serves is exposed by the bodies and lives it consumes.
Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?THE THREAD
And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.Both verses use the causative of עבר (ʿ-b-r, cross or pass over): children are made to pass through fire. Leviticus gives the act as a prohibition; Ezekiel joins that passage to bloodshed and consumption.
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