What Does Ezekiel 5:14 Mean in the King James?
Moreover I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by.
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 binds desolation to public shame: what is laid waste is set before every passerby’s eyes.
THE MEANING
You hear the sentence in full force: the one addressed is made waste and reproach among the surrounding nations, exposed to every passerby. The verse holds devastation and public humiliation together; its wording does not hide or soften the shame it names.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that ruin can stay contained and unseen: here, desolation becomes a public condition before surrounding nations and passersby.
THE ROOT
חָרְבָּה
ḥorbāh
GROWS FROM
חרב
ḥ-r-b
To become dry or desolate; to be laid waste.
“waste, desolation” in this verse is ḥorbāh. The Hebrew pairs חָרְבָּה (ḥorbāh, desolation) with חֶרְפָּה (ḥerpāh, reproach). They are not from the same root, but their near echo binds physical ruin to public shame in one sentence.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāraḇ: To become desolate or be laid waste
חָרַב
The verb shows the condition named by desolation: a place or people becoming waste.
ḥārēḇ: Dry, desolate
חָרֵב
This adjective preserves the root’s image of what has dried up and been left barren.
חֶרְפָּה
ḥerpāh
GROWS FROM
חרף
ḥ-r-p
To reproach, taunt, or heap scorn upon.
The reproach here is more than an inward feeling of shame: the root also names the act of taunting. Beside desolation, it makes the ruined condition something surrounding people can see and scorn.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērēp: To reproach or taunt
חֵרֵף
The verb names the act that turns disgrace into something spoken and directed at another.
məḥārēp: One who reproaches or reviles
מְחָרֵף
This form names the person who gives the public shame its voice.
וְשַׂמְתִּיךְ
wəśamtîḵ
GROWS FROM
שים
ś-y-m
To put, set, or place.
The verb translated make also carries the sense of setting or placing. It frames waste and reproach as conditions imposed upon the one addressed, then the rest of the verse shows those conditions exposed to view.
ALSO GROWS
śîm: Put, set, place
שִׂים
This is the root’s basic action and the sense carried by the verb in the verse.
śîm lēḇ: Set the heart; attend
שִׂים לֵב
The phrase retains the image of placing or setting, showing how the root can describe directing attention.
THE PATTERN
When ruin becomes reproach, judgment moves from private condition into a spectacle witnessed by others.
Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used.THE THREAD
Neither will I cause men to hear in thee the shame of the heathen any more, neither shalt thou bear the reproach of the people any more, neither shalt thou cause thy nations to fall any more, saith the Lord GOD.Ezekiel 36:15 uses חֶרְפָּה (ḥerpāh, reproach), from the same root חרף (ḥ-r-p) as the public disgrace named here. It answers the exposure of this verse with the promise that this reproach will no longer be borne.
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