What Does Ezra 10:10 Mean in the King James?
And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel.
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 distinguishes the breach from the guilt it adds, then makes the result communal: one act becomes part of Israel’s growing liability.
THE MEANING
Here, taking foreign wives is named as a breach, and that breach adds to Israel’s guilt. The verse speaks now of how one act can deepen a community’s shared liability.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a choice can remain contained within the chooser: the verse says the act increases the trespass borne by Israel.
THE ROOT
מְעַלְתֶּם
maʿaltem
GROWS FROM
מעל
m-ʿ-l
To act unfaithfully; to breach trust.
The English pair “transgressed/trespass” sounds like one idea repeated, but maʿal names the breach while ashamat (אַשְׁמַת, ʾashmat, guilt or liability) names what accrues from it. Ezra (עֶזְרָא, ʿEzra, “help”), from ʿazar (עָזַר, “to help”), speaks by naming that breach as a form of help through exposure.
ALSO GROWS
maʿal: To act unfaithfully or breach trust.
מָעַל
This verbal sense is the root behind “ye have transgressed.”
maʿal: A breach or act of unfaithfulness.
מַעַל
Joshua 7:1 uses this root family when it names a trespass whose effects reach Israel.
אַשְׁמַת
ʾashmat
GROWS FROM
אשם
ʾ-sh-m
To incur guilt or become liable.
“trespass” in this verse is ʾashmat. Here the noun identifies guilt that can be incurred, not simply the act that caused it. The liability belongs to Israel (יִשְׂרָאֵל, Yisraʾel; the name is explained as “one who strives with God” in Genesis 32:28), so the sentence makes an act legible as a people’s burden.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāshēm: Guilty; liable.
אָשֵׁם
This form shows the state of liability carried by the word “trespass.”
ʾāshām: Guilt or a reparation offering.
אָשָׁם
The same root links guilt with the response that addresses what is owed.
לְהוֹסִיף
lehosif
GROWS FROM
יסף
y-s-p
To add, increase, or continue.
“increase” in this verse is lehosif. The culpability is represented as growing through addition. The same root appears in Yosef (יוֹסֵף, Yōsēf), whose name is linked with “may he add” in Genesis 30:24.
ALSO GROWS
yāsaph: To add, increase, or do again.
יָסַף
This is the root of the verb translated “to increase.”
Yōsēf: Joseph; the name is linked with “may he add.”
יוֹסֵף
The name preserves the same root of adding that marks the growing liability here.
THE PATTERN
A breach can spread from an act into the shared condition of a whole people.
But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel.For the LORD brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel; for he made Judah naked, and transgressed sore against the LORD.Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?THE THREAD
But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel.Joshua 7:1 uses maʿal (מָעַל, breach or act unfaithfully), the same root as “transgressed” here. In both verses, an act attributed to particular people is named as a breach carried by Israel, showing how liability reaches beyond the act itself.
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