Bible Strands
Ezekiel 5:14
I will make you a ruin and a disgrace among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Yahweh speaks this declaration to the prophet as a symbolic representation of Jerusalem. The pronouncement occurs during a sequence of judgments where God's wrath is being fully executed against the city.
The words — The text uses לְ/חָרְבָּ֣ה (le./cha.re.Bah) for "into a ruin" and וּ/לְ/חֶרְפָּ֔ה (u./le./cher.Pah) for "into a reproach." These terms establish the physical destruction and social shame that will result from the coming judgments.
The thread — The theme of divine judgment leaving a place as a ruin and reproach appears in Nehemiah 2:17 and Psalms 74:3. These passages similarly depict the physical devastation of Jerusalem and the sanctuary as a consequence of enemy invasion and divine allowance.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that Jerusalem's destruction will serve as a public warning to all surrounding nations. It requires the reader to acknowledge that divine judgment operates visibly to establish God's authority.
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
Moreover I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by.
Cross-references
- Nehemiah 2:17 Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned down. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we will no longer be a disgrace.”
- Psalms 74:3 Turn Your steps to the everlasting ruins, to everything in the sanctuary the enemy has destroyed.
- Psalms 79:1 A Psalm of Asaph. The nations, O God, have invaded Your inheritance; they have defiled Your holy temple and reduced Jerusalem to rubble.
- Ezekiel 22:4 you are guilty of the blood you have shed, and you are defiled by the idols you have made. You have brought your days to a close and have come to the end of your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations and a mockery to all the lands.
- Leviticus 26:31 I will reduce your cities to rubble and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will refuse to smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices.
- Deuteronomy 28:37 You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the LORD will drive you.
- 2 Chronicles 7:20 then I will uproot Israel from the soil I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. I will make it an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples.
- Isaiah 64:10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wasteland and Jerusalem a desolation.
- Jeremiah 19:8 I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds.
- Jeremiah 24:9 I will make them a horror and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing wherever I have banished them.