What Does Ezekiel 24:9 Mean in the King James?
Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the bloody city! I will even make the pile for fire great.
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 verse sets a bloody city beside a fire-pile made great, revealing that the city’s violence is gathering toward consequence.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now through the image of a city whose violence is plain as bloodshed. What is amassed there becomes fuel, and the fire-pile is enlarged rather than concealed. The warning names a consequence that grows in the open.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a community can normalize bloodshed and keep its consequences buried.
THE ROOT
אַגְדִּיל
ʾagdîl
GROWS FROM
גדל
To grow, become great, or enlarge.
“make great” in this verse is ʾagdîl. The word describes an active enlargement: the fire-pile is made great. Beside the bloody city, this growth makes the consequence of its violence accumulate in plain sight.
ALSO GROWS
gādal: To grow or become great.
גָּדַל
This branch makes the image dynamic: what is named as great can also be understood as something that grows.
gādōl: Great or large.
גָּדוֹל
This is the familiar quality expressed by אַגְדִּיל (ʾagdîl, I will make great), now heard as the result of enlargement.
migdāl: A tower; a tall, raised structure.
מִגְדָּל
This branch carries the same root into something that rises in scale, echoing the verse’s image of a pile being built up.
THE PATTERN
Violence a person or community builds up returns as a consequence that becomes visible.
His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.THE THREAD
Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not;The Hebrew phrase עִיר הַדָּמִים (ʿîr haddāmîm, city of bloods) echoes the bloody city in Ezekiel. The shared word דָּם (dām, blood) makes the city’s violence part of its identity, while Ezekiel’s verse adds the growing fire-pile as its consequence.
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