What Does Ezekiel 23:48 Mean in the King James?
Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness.
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 word translated “taught” carries the force of discipline, so the end of the wrongdoing itself becomes its warning.
THE MEANING
The conduct called lewdness is brought to an end, and that end becomes a warning to all women. “Taught” carries the force of being disciplined or corrected, so the lesson comes through consequence, not neutral explanation. The verse speaks with an uncompromising link between repeated wrongdoing, judgment, and the expectation that others will not repeat it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that repeated wrongdoing can remain consequence-free and private: here, its end becomes a public lesson.
THE ROOT
וְנִוַּסְּרוּ
wəniwwasserū from yāsar
GROWS FROM
י־ס־ר
y-s-r
to discipline, correct, or instruct through correction
The word translated “taught” carries the added force of being chastened or corrected. The ending of the conduct is itself the correction: witnesses receive the lesson through its consequence.
ALSO GROWS
mūsār: instruction, discipline
מוּסָר
This noun names the corrective instruction contained in the verse’s warning.
yessar: to discipline or correct
יְסַר
The verb makes clear that the teaching here has the force of correction, not simply explanation.
זִמָּה
zimmāh
GROWS FROM
ז־מ־ם
z-m-m
to devise or plot
The word retains a seed of devising beneath its forceful sense of lewdness. It presents the named conduct as a shaped pattern, which gives weight to the warning against following it.
ALSO GROWS
zāmam: to devise, plot
זָמַם
The verb exposes the deliberate design beneath the conduct named as lewdness.
məzimmāh: plan, purpose, or design
מְזִמָּה
This related noun preserves the idea of a formed plan beneath the verse’s description of repeated wrongdoing.
THE PATTERN
When wrongdoing becomes publicly answerable, its consequence is made to interrupt repetition by teaching those who witness it.
And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.Smite a scorner, and the simple will beware: and reprove one that hath understanding, and he will understand knowledge.Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.THE THREAD
Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.The word translated “chasteneth” comes from the same root, יָסַר (yāsar), as Ezekiel’s “taught.” The shared root reveals instruction carried through correction, rather than information alone.
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