What Does Ezekiel 36:4 Mean in the King James?
Therefore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD; Thus saith the Lord GOD to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes, and to the cities that are forsaken, which became a prey and derision to the residue of the heathen that are round about;
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 ruined land is not scenery here: it is summoned to hear, and the word is spoken directly to the places called forsaken.
THE MEANING
The word meets you in places exposed to ruin and other people’s contempt; even there, the LORD GOD addresses the forsaken directly. Their condition is named plainly, yet it does not place them beyond the reach of that word.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that abandoned, publicly mocked places are beyond God’s reach: they are the very places addressed by the word.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְעוּ
shimʿu
GROWS FROM
שמע
hear, listen
“hear” in this verse is shimʿu. The plural command is directed to the mountains themselves, not to people standing nearby. Hearing here opens toward response, making the terrain a receiver of the word rather than a passive backdrop.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: To hear or listen, with response often carried by context.
שָׁמַע
The verse’s command comes from this root and makes the mountains its addressee.
shemuʿah: A report or something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The same root can name what is heard, linking the addressed landscape to the word it receives.
הַנֶּעֱזָבוֹת
hanneʿezavot
GROWS FROM
עזב
leave, abandon
“forsaken” in this verse is hanneʿezavot. The cities are described with a form of the root for leaving or abandoning. The root gives their desolation the shape of being left behind, while the verse names those very cities as recipients of the LORD GOD’s speech.
ALSO GROWS
ʿazav: To leave or abandon.
עָזַב
This verb supplies the root behind the cities’ condition of being forsaken.
ʿazuvah: A feminine form meaning forsaken or abandoned.
עֲזוּבָה
The same word family appears in Isaiah’s promise that the land will no longer be called “Forsaken.”
THE PATTERN
The created world is an active participant in divine address and movement, not a mute setting.
Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful togetherFor ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.THE THREAD
Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married.“Forsaken” in both verses comes from עזב (ʿazav), meaning to leave or abandon. Ezekiel names the cities by that condition; Isaiah shows the name “Forsaken” lifted from the land.
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