What Does Ezekiel 4:17 Mean in the King James?
That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.
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 turns “want” from private desire into shared bodily lack: bread and water are absent, and people watch one another waste away.
THE MEANING
Here, want means bread and water are missing from life, not that appetite is merely felt. People face one another in stunned desolation while they waste away under their crookedness. The verse holds need in the body and between people at once.
THE ROOT
יַחְסְרוּ
yaḥseru
GROWS FROM
חסר
To lack, be deficient, or be in need.
The Hebrew verb names an actual lack: bread and water are missing. Its root connects this want to deficiency and need, revealing deprivation beneath the English word’s possible sense of desire.
ALSO GROWS
ḥeser: Lack, deficiency
חֶסֶר
This noun makes the verse’s want a condition of absence rather than mere longing.
maḥsor: Need, want, scarcity
מַחְסוֹר
This form names deprivation as a concrete need, matching the lack of bread and water.
וְנָשַׁמּוּ
wenashammu
GROWS FROM
שמם
To be desolate or appalled; to become devastated.
“be astonied” in this verse is wenashammu. The word carries astonishment within a field of desolation. People are not merely surprised; they face one another in a state shaped by devastation.
ALSO GROWS
shemamah: Desolation, waste
שְׁמָמָה
This noun shows that the astonishment belongs to the language of devastation, not just momentary surprise.
meshamem: Desolating, making desolate
מְשַׁמֵּם
This form carries the same root into the act of devastation, sharpening the force of what people face together.
THE PATTERN
Hunger and thirst are embodied conditions that shape how people encounter and respond to one another.
Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:THE THREAD
A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.“Want” in Ezekiel and “want” in the psalm come from the Hebrew root חסר (ḥ-s-r), to lack or be in need. Ezekiel names that lack as breadlessness and thirst; the psalm places the same root beside the shepherd’s care.
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