Bible Strands
Ezekiel 12:20
The inhabited cities will be laid waste, and the land will become desolate. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Yahweh speaks through Ezekiel to the exiled community, concluding a warning about the imminent devastation of Jerusalem and the surrounding territory.
The words — The Hebrew teḥerabnah (תֶּחֱרַבְנָה) means "they will be laid waste," paired with sheḥmāmāh (שְׁמָמָה) rendered "desolation," describing the total ruin of the cities and land.
The thread — This motif of urban and territorial stripping recurs in Isaiah 3:26, Isaiah 7:23, and Jeremiah 4:7 as a standard prophetic description of covenant judgment.
Why it lands — The text states that the coming ruin will force recognition of Yahweh’s identity, requiring the audience to treat the disaster as a direct manifestation of divine authority rather than a random historical event.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall be desolate; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 7:23 And on that day, in every place that had a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver, only briers and thorns will be found.
- Jeremiah 4:7 A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his lair to lay waste your land. Your cities will be reduced to ruins and lie uninhabited.
- Isaiah 3:26 And the gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.
- Jeremiah 25:9 behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.
- Isaiah 24:3 The earth will be utterly laid waste and thoroughly plundered. For the LORD has spoken this word.
- Isaiah 24:12 The city is left in ruins; its gate is reduced to rubble.
- Isaiah 64:10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wasteland and Jerusalem a desolation.
- Jeremiah 4:23 I looked at the earth, and it was formless and void; I looked to the heavens, and they had no light.
- Jeremiah 12:10 Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard; they have trampled My plot of ground. They have turned My pleasant field into a desolate wasteland.
- Jeremiah 16:9 For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to remove from this place, before your very eyes and in your days, the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom.