What Does Ezekiel 32:18 Mean in the King James?
Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit.
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 command to bring Egypt down and the phrase “those who go down” repeat one Hebrew root, making descent both imposed and already underway.
THE MEANING
The line holds grief and judgment in the same scene: the multitude is mourned as it is sent down to the earth’s lowest places. The pit is the destination shared by Egypt and the nations already descending.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that greatness or fame guarantees exemption from collapse.
THE ROOT
וְהוֹרִידֵהוּ
wehoridehu
GROWS FROM
ירד
יָרַד (yārad): descend; in the causative form, cause to descend.
“cast them down” in this verse is wehoridehu. The Hebrew first commands a descent, then names the dead as “those going down” with the same root. English gives these as different phrases, but Hebrew binds the imposed lowering and ongoing descent into one movement: Egypt is sent toward the pit that already receives others.
ALSO GROWS
yārad: To descend, go down.
יָרַד
This is the basic verb whose causative form commands Egypt’s descent.
yōrədê: Those going down.
יוֹרְדֵי
This form appears later in the verse, repeating the root for those already descending into the pit.
נְהֵה
neheh
GROWS FROM
נהה
נָהָה (nāhā): wail, lament.
“wail” in this verse is neheh. The command calls for voiced lament, not detached observation: this root names both wailing and lamentation. Grief is voiced over the multitude even as the verse sends it downward.
ALSO GROWS
nehi: Lamentation, wailing.
נְהִי
This noun from the same consonants shows that the command’s wail belongs to a wider language of voiced grief.
nāhā: To wail, lament.
נָהָה
This verbal form shares the root and makes the lament an audible act.
תַּחְתִּיּוֹת
taḥtiyyot
GROWS FROM
תחת
תַּחַת (taḥat): below, beneath.
“Nether parts” names the under-regions, and the verse intensifies that depth by placing the multitude among those headed for the pit. The word’s root gives the image a concrete downward location.
ALSO GROWS
taḥat: Under, beneath.
תַּחַת
This is the basic spatial sense carried into the verse’s “nether parts.”
taḥton: Lower, below.
תַּחְתּוֹן
This related form extends the same root’s language of position beneath.
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly pictures the height of human power as vulnerable to being brought low, even into the pit.
The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken.Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.THE THREAD
I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.Both passages use ירד (yārad, “descend”) for bringing a figure down and for those who descend into the pit. The repeated root makes the pit a shared destination, not an isolated fate.
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