Bible Strands
Ezekiel 5:2
When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God addresses Ezekiel immediately after the prophet shaves his head and beard and divides the hair with scales. This command functions as a prophetic enactment during the symbolic preparation for Jerusalem’s siege.
The words — The text specifies שְלִשִׁית (she.li.shit), meaning a third part, and תַבְעִיר (tav.'ir), meaning you will burn. These terms establish the precise division and destruction of the hair.
The thread — The tripartite judgment reappears in Ezekiel 5:12, where plague, famine, and the sword execute the divided portions on the city’s inhabitants. Leviticus 26:33 also connects scattering among nations with a drawn sword following land desolation.
Why it lands — The text commands dividing hair into three exact portions for burning, sword, and wind. This structure requires the reader to acknowledge that covenant breach produces proportional, inescapable consequences.
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
Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 5:12 A third of your people will die by plague or be consumed by famine within you, a third will fall by the sword outside your walls, and a third I will scatter to every wind and unleash a sword behind them.
- 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 4:1 “Now you, son of man, take a brick, place it before you, and draw on it the city of Jerusalem.
- Ezekiel 12:14 And I will scatter to every wind all the attendants around him and all his troops, and I will draw a sword to chase after them.
- Jeremiah 9:16 I will scatter them among the nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”
- Jeremiah 15:2 If they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you are to tell them that this is what the LORD says: ‘Those destined for death, to death; those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine; and those destined for captivity, to captivity.’
- Jeremiah 9:21 For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.
- Jeremiah 24:10 And I will send against them sword and famine and plague, until they have perished from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.’”
- Jeremiah 38:2 “This is what the LORD says: Whoever stays in this city will die by sword and famine and plague, but whoever surrenders to the Chaldeans will live; he will retain his life like a spoil of war, and he will live.
- Amos 9:2 Though they dig down to Sheol, from there My hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, from there I will pull them down.