What Does Ezekiel 7:21 Mean in the King James?
And I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall pollute it.
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 deepest wound is not only that the sacred is taken, but that its seizure treats it as common.
THE MEANING
What is cherished can be handed into outsiders’ hands as prey and spoil, and the taking is followed by profanation. The verse holds both injuries together: the thing is seized, and its set-apartness is violated.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that what is set apart cannot be violated or stripped of its meaning.
THE ROOT
וְחִלְּלוּהוּ
wəḥilləlūhū
GROWS FROM
חלל
ḥ-l-l
To profane or defile; to violate what is set apart.
The English “pollute” can sound like dirt landing on a surface, while this Hebrew verb names a violation of set-apartness. The verse’s harm is not only that the thing is seized, but that it is handled as though it were common.
ALSO GROWS
ḥol: Common or ordinary; what is not set apart.
חֹל
This branch shows the contrast beneath “pollute”: the sacred is treated as ordinary.
ḥillul: Profanation or desecration.
חִלּוּל
This noun names the violation the verse describes: treating what is set apart as common.
וּנְתַתִּיהוּ
ūnətattîhū
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, put, or set.
“give” in this verse is ūnətattîhū. The root carries the sense of setting something somewhere as well as giving it. The verse presents the handover itself as part of the judgment: what is cherished is placed into other hands before it is profaned.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: Gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This branch shows the root’s sense of something being given from one hand to another.
natun: Given or placed.
נָתוּן
This form echoes the verse’s image of the object being set into the hands of others.
THE PATTERN
What is set apart is profaned when it is treated as common or contemptible.
Therefore every one that eateth it shall bear his iniquity, because he hath profaned the hallowed thing of the LORD: and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, The table of the LORD is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible.Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?THE THREAD
My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it.The same Hebrew root for “pollute” appears again, now naming the profanation of the secret place itself. The verse carries the violation from the object handed over to the sacred space the robbers enter.
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