What Does Ezekiel 39:17 Mean in the King James?
And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood.
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 calls slaughter a sacrifice and then refuses to veil what that means: flesh eaten, blood drunk.
THE MEANING
You stand before a summons to every bird and beast: assemble, come, and eat the flesh and drink the blood of a great slaughter on Israel’s mountains. The text calls this scene a sacrifice while leaving its violence plainly named.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that sacred language makes violence disappear is dissolved: here “sacrifice” names slaughter whose flesh is eaten and blood drunk.
THE ROOT
זֶבַח
zebaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
z-b-ḥ
To slaughter, especially in a sacrificial act.
The word names a slaughter-sacrifice, from the same root family as the altar. The creatures are called to eat what the verse itself names as flesh and blood, so the sacred word does not hide the violence; it names it.
ALSO GROWS
zōvēaḥ: one who sacrifices
זֹבֵחַ
This agent word keeps the act of slaughter in view.
mizbēaḥ: altar
מִזְבֵּחַ
The altar belongs to the same word family, linking the place of sacrifice to the slaughter named here.
הֵאָסְפוּ
heʾāsfū
GROWS FROM
אסף
ʾ-s-p
To gather, collect, or bring in.
“gather yourselves” in this verse is heʾāsfū. The command to gather shares its root with a word for ingathering, or harvest. The scene’s bodies are gathered around the feast with the language of something brought in.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsīp̄: ingathering; harvest
אָסִיף
The harvest sense makes the gathering sound like bringing in a yield.
ʾāsap̄: to gather, collect, bring in
אָסַף
This is the root’s basic action, echoed directly in the command to gather.
THE PATTERN
When judgment is pictured as God’s feast, the slaughter is named openly and the bodies become the meal.
The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.THE THREAD
For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.The same Hebrew noun, זֶבַח (zebaḥ, sacrifice), names the sacrifice in both verses; Jeremiah immediately pairs it with a sword made drunk with blood. The shared root keeps Ezekiel’s phrase tied to the slaughter its feast describes.
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