What Does Ezekiel 7:22 Mean in the King James?
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 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 intruders are “breakers-through,” so the verse pictures desecration as a violent breach of the hidden place.
THE MEANING
When the LORD turns his face away, the hidden sanctuary is exposed to violent breach; the verse holds divine withdrawal and desecration together. The sacred place is entered by force and profaned, without softening the violence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a place set apart for God cannot be reached or violated by violence.
THE ROOT
פָרִיצִים
paritsim
GROWS FROM
פרץ
parats
Break through, break out, or burst into a breach.
English “robbers” can sound like theft after entry; פָרִיצִים (paritsim, violent breakers) carries the force of those who break in. Their entrance into צְפוּנִי (tsephuni, the hidden place) is already an act of violence before the repeated profaning.
ALSO GROWS
parits: A violent or insolent person; here, one who breaks in.
פָּרִיץ
The intruder is named by the force of the breach, not merely by taking property.
perets: A breach or breaking forth.
פֶּרֶץ
The breach is the opening made by breaking through; the root makes the entry itself part of the violence.
חִלְּלוּ
chillelu
GROWS FROM
חלל
chalal
Profane or make common what is set apart.
“pollute” in this verse is chillelu. The repeated חִלְּלוּ (chillelu, they profaned) names this as desecration, not mere dirt. The root connects profaning with making common, so what is violated is the place’s set-apartness.
ALSO GROWS
chol: Common or ordinary; outside what is set apart.
חֹל
This makes visible the boundary profanation crosses: the set-apart thing is rendered common.
hillul: Profanation or desecration.
חִלּוּל
This noun names the action described twice in the verse, tying the intruders’ violence to desecration.
צְפוּנִי
tsephuni
GROWS FROM
צפן
tsaphan
Hide, store up, or treasure.
The KJV’s “secret place” draws on a word for what is hidden or stored up. The scene carries a double violation: intruders force their way into a place marked by concealment and then profane it.
ALSO GROWS
tsaphan: To hide, store up, or treasure.
צָפַן
The root gives the place its character as something concealed or kept in reserve.
tsafun: Hidden or concealed.
צָפוּן
This branch echoes the hidden quality of the place the intruders enter.
THE PATTERN
The place set apart for God can be profaned when it is entered or treated as common.
They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground.And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.THE THREAD
They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground.Psalm 74:7 uses the same Hebrew root חלל (chalal, to profane or make common) as the repeated “pollute” and “defile” in this verse. It shows the same violation at the scale of a sanctuary burned and its dwelling place cast down.
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