Bible Strands
Ezekiel 23:25
And I will set My jealous rage against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will cut off your noses and ears, and your survivors will fall by the sword. They will seize your sons and daughters, and your remnant will be consumed by fire.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God speaks through Ezekiel to the allegorical cities of Samaria and Jerusalem as He pronounces delegated judgment through invading foreign armies. The declaration occurs immediately after describing their military encirclement and immediately before the stripping of their possessions.
The words — The Hebrew וְ/נָתַתִּ֨י (ve./na.ta.Ti) translates literally to "and I will set," while קִנְאָתִ֜/י (kin.'a.T/i) means "my jealousy." These terms anchor the divine motivation behind the coming fury.
The thread — The motif of divine jealousy and severe judgment recurs in Exodus 34:14, where Yahweh identifies Himself as a jealous God, and in Ezekiel 23:47, where the invading mob executes the same sentence of sword and fire. Ezekiel 5:13 parallels this pattern of spent wrath followed by divine resolution.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that covenant unfaithfulness triggers delegated human violence as the direct instrument of divine justice. It confronts the reader with the concrete consequences of breaking a binding relationship rather than offering abstract moral lessons.
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 set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 23:47 The mob will stone them and cut them down with their swords. They will kill their sons and daughters and burn down their houses.
- Exodus 34:14 For you must not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
- Ezekiel 5:13 And when My anger is spent and I have vented My wrath against them, I will be appeased. And when I have spent My wrath on them, they will know that I, the LORD, in My zeal have spoken.
- Ezekiel 8:1 In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me; and there the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me.
- Ezekiel 15:6 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I will give up the people of Jerusalem.
- Ezekiel 16:38 And I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and those who shed blood; so I will bring upon you the wrath of your bloodshed and jealousy.
- Ezekiel 20:47 Say to the forest of the Negev: Hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Lord GOD says: I am about to ignite in you a fire, and it will devour all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched, and by it every face from south to north will be scorched.
- Hosea 2:4 I will have no compassion on her children, because they are the children of adultery.
- Deuteronomy 29:20 The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven
- Deuteronomy 32:21 They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding.