Bible Strands
Ezekiel 22:15
I will disperse you among the nations and scatter you throughout the lands; I will purge your uncleanness.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The Lord addresses Jerusalem through Ezekiel during a prophetic declaration of impending judgment. This statement immediately follows a challenge regarding the people's capacity to endure the coming day of divine action.
The words — The Hebrew verbs וַ/הֲפִיצוֹתִי (ha.fi.tzo.Ti) and וְ/זֵרִיתִיךְ (ze.ri.Ti/kh) literally mean to scatter or disperse. The phrase וַ/הֲתִמּוֹתִי (ha.ti.mo.Ti) carries the literal sense of making an end of or purging their uncleanness (טֻמְאָתֵךְ).
The thread — This scattering motif appears in covenant warnings and historical accounts, cited in Deuteronomy 4:27 and Nehemiah 1:8. Ezekiel reinforces the purification imagery in Ezekiel 22:22 by comparing the people to silver melted in a furnace.
Why it lands — The text states that exile will remove the people from their land and eliminate their ritual impurity. It requires the reader to accept that divine judgment functions as a necessary mechanism for cleansing rather than mere punishment.
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 I will scatter thee among the heathen, and disperse thee in the countries, and will consume thy filthiness out of thee.
Cross-references
- Nehemiah 1:8 Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses when You said, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations,
- Deuteronomy 4:27 Then the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you.
- Ezekiel 22:22 As silver is melted in a furnace, so you will be melted within the city. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have poured out My wrath upon you.’”
- Zechariah 7:14 But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known, and the land was left desolate behind them so that no one could come or go. Thus they turned the pleasant land into a desolation.”
- Leviticus 26:33 But I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities are laid waste.
- Ezekiel 36:19 I dispersed them among the nations, and they were scattered throughout the lands. I judged them according to their ways and deeds.
- Deuteronomy 28:25 The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
- Deuteronomy 28:64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
- Isaiah 1:25 I will turn My hand against you; I will thoroughly purge your dross; I will remove all your impurities.
- Jeremiah 15:4 I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem.