What Does Ezekiel 6:10 Mean in the King James?
And they shall know that I am the LORD, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.
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
Knowing the LORD here is forced recognition: the calamity he brings makes his spoken words impossible to dismiss as empty.
THE MEANING
The verse places knowing the LORD alongside the devastation he brings and names the harm as proof that his words are not empty. That knowing arrives through the event itself, not through an abstract claim.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that knowing the LORD always comes as comfort: here, recognition arrives through destructive judgment.
THE ROOT
הָרָעָה
hā-rāʿāh
GROWS FROM
רעע
raʿaʿ
To be bad or to do harm.
English “evil” can sound like an abstract quality, while רָעָה (raʿah) can name harm or calamity. The verse keeps the LORD’s agency and the devastation named as evil in the same sentence.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad or evil; an adjective.
רַע
It shares the root’s language of what is bad, making the verse’s “evil” concrete in the harm that follows.
raʿah: Evil, harm, or calamity; a noun.
רָעָה
This noun form names the destructive thing the verse says will be done to them.
וְיָדְעוּ
wəyāḏəʿū
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know, recognize, or perceive.
“know” in this verse is wəyāḏəʿū. יָדַע (yādaʿ) carries the sense of knowing or perceiving through encounter, as well as knowing information. Here, the recognition of the LORD is bound to what unfolds, not to a detached fact.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: Knowledge or perception.
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root shows that the verb’s knowing belongs to a wider family of perception and understanding.
maddaʿ: Knowledge or learning.
מַדָּע
This branch shows the root can name what is known; the verse’s verb points to recognition made real through experience.
דִּבַּרְתִּי
dibbartî
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak or declare.
“said” in this verse is dibbartî. דִּבַּרְתִּי (dibbartî), “I spoke,” shares its root with דָּבָר (dāḇār), which can mean a word or a matter. The verse says this speech is not empty: it is bound to the harm carried out.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke or declared.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal form makes clear that the root names the act of speaking.
dāḇār: A word, matter, or affair.
דָּבָר
The noun’s range connects speech with a matter or event, echoing the verse’s movement from what is spoken to what is done.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s spoken word reaches its force when it comes to pass in action.
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?For I am the LORD: I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass; it shall be no more prolonged: for in your days, O rebellious house, will I say the word, and will perform it, saith the Lord GOD.For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.THE THREAD
And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.The same verb יָדַע (yādaʿ), “know,” appears in the near-identical promise, “ye shall know that I am the LORD.” Exodus connects that knowing with being brought out from burdens; Ezekiel connects it with devastation, showing recognition through what the LORD does.
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