Bible Strands
Ezekiel 16:11
I adorned you with jewelry, and I put bracelets on your wrists and a chain around your neck.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Yahweh addresses the personified city of Jerusalem while cataloging a sequence of lavish gifts. The speaker details the layers of fabric and accessories bestowed upon the recipient in the middle of Ezekiel 16.
The words — The Hebrew עֶדִי (ʿēḏî) translates literally to “ornaments” or “jewelry,” and צְמִידִים (ṣəmîḏîm) means “bracelets.” The verb אֶעְדֶּה (ʾeʿdēh) carries the concrete sense of adorning or equipping the person with these items.
The thread — This inventory of adornment parallels the bridal gifts recorded in Genesis 24:22 and the catalog of women’s jewelry in Isaiah 3:19. The motif of physical ornaments as markers of status or covenant provision appears in these passages.
Why it lands — The text states that Yahweh actively placed jewelry, wrist bracelets, and a neck chain on the recipient. A reader must observe the volume of unmerited provision before the narrative moves to the recipient’s subsequent choices.
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
I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck.
Cross-references
- Genesis 24:22 And after the camels had finished drinking, he took out a gold ring weighing a beka, and two gold bracelets for her wrists weighing ten shekels.
- Isaiah 3:19 their pendants, bracelets, and veils;
- Genesis 24:47 Then I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She replied, ‘The daughter of Bethuel son of Nahor, whom Milcah bore to him.’ So I put the ring on her nose and the bracelets on her wrists.
- Genesis 41:42 Then Pharaoh removed the signet ring from his finger, put it on Joseph’s finger, clothed him in garments of fine linen, and placed a gold chain around his neck.
- Proverbs 1:9 For they are a garland of grace on your head and a pendant around your neck.
- Ezekiel 23:42 accompanied by the sound of a carefree crowd. Drunkards were brought in from the desert along with men from the rabble, who put bracelets on your wrists and beautiful crowns on your head.
- Numbers 31:50 So we have brought to the LORD an offering of the gold articles each man acquired—armlets, bracelets, rings, earrings, and necklaces—to make atonement for ourselves before the LORD.”
- Revelation 4:10 the twenty-four elders fall down before the One seated on the throne, and they worship Him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying:
- Genesis 24:53 Then he brought out jewels of silver and gold, and articles of clothing, and he gave them to Rebekah. He also gave precious gifts to her brother and her mother.
- Genesis 35:4 So they gave Jacob all their foreign gods and all their earrings, and Jacob buried them under the oak near Shechem.