What Does Ezekiel 44:25 Mean in the King James?
And they shall come at no dead person to defile themselves: but for father, or for mother, or for son, or for daughter, for brother, or for sister that hath had no husband, they may defile themselves.
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
Kinship can cross the ritual boundary around death: sacred duty does not erase a priest’s closeness to family.
THE MEANING
When death draws near, contact carries a ritual boundary, yet close kinship is named as a reason that boundary may be crossed. The verse names parents, children, siblings, and an unmarried sister in that permission. Grief and sacred boundaries can occupy the same moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a priest’s sacred role requires total distance from loved ones in death.
THE ROOT
יִטַּמָּאוּ
yitamma'u
GROWS FROM
טמא
ṭ-m-ʾ
Become ritually unclean; carry impurity.
“defile themselves” in this verse is yitamma'u. Here, “defile” names a ritual condition from contact with death, not a charge of moral wrongdoing. The same root names becoming unclean and the state of impurity, making the family exception a boundary the verse explicitly allows to be crossed.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāmēʾ: Unclean; ritually impure.
טָמֵא
This describes the condition associated with contact with the dead in the verse.
ṭumʾāh: Impurity; uncleanness.
טֻמְאָה
This names the state conveyed by the verb translated “defile themselves”.
מֵת אָדָם
met adam
GROWS FROM
מות
m-w-t
To die; death.
“dead person” in this verse is met adam. The phrase names a dead human directly, then links that contact to the ritual condition expressed by טמא (ṭ-m-ʾ, becoming unclean). The verse keeps death concrete while making kinship the stated exception to the boundary around it.
ALSO GROWS
mot: To die.
מוֹת
The verbal form shows the action at the root of the “dead person” named here.
māvet: Death.
מָוֶת
This noun makes the same root’s connection between the dead person and death explicit.
THE PATTERN
Kinship draws people toward grief, even where death sets a boundary around contact.
And for his sister a virgin, that is nigh unto him, which hath had no husband; for her may he be defiled.And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.THE THREAD
He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.Numbers uses the same טמא (ṭ-m-ʾ, become unclean) root for contact with a dead body, so the ritual boundary in Ezekiel is direct and specific. Ezekiel then names the close kin for whom that boundary may be crossed.
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