Bible Strands
Ezekiel 6:4
Your altars will be demolished and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will cast down your slain before your idols.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Lord GOD speaks through Ezekiel to the mountains, hills, ravines, and valleys of Israel, announcing imminent judgment via sword and the ruin of their worship sites.
The words — The Hebrew נָשַׁמּוּ (na.Sha.mu) means "they will be made desolate," and נִשְׁבְּרוּ (nish.be.Ru) means "they will be shattered," describing the physical demolition of altars.
The thread — The destruction of high places and altars recurs in Leviticus 26:30 and 2 Chronicles 14:5, while 1 Kings 13:2 records a prophetic word against an altar that aligns with this judgment motif.
Why it lands — The text states that idolatrous altars will be broken and the slain cast before idols, requiring the reader to acknowledge that false worship sites will be physically ruined and their practitioners left exposed.
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 your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.
Cross-references
- 2 Chronicles 14:5 He also removed the high places and incense altars from all the cities of Judah, and under him the kingdom was at peace.
- Leviticus 26:30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless remains of your idols; and My soul will despise you.
- 1 Kings 13:2 And he cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD, “O altar, O altar, this is what the LORD says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David, and upon you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense upon you, and human bones will be burned upon you.’”
- 2 Kings 23:14 He smashed the sacred pillars to pieces, cut down the Asherah poles, and covered the sites with human bones.
- 2 Kings 23:16 And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the hillside, and he sent someone to take the bones out of the tombs, and he burned them on the altar to defile it, according to the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who had foretold these things.
- 2 Chronicles 34:4 Then in his presence the altars of the Baals were torn down, and he cut to pieces the incense altars that were above them. He shattered the Asherah poles, the carved idols, and the cast images, crushed them to dust, and scattered them over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.
- Jeremiah 8:1 “At that time,” declares the LORD, “the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.
- Jeremiah 43:13 He will demolish the sacred pillars of the temple of the sun in the land of Egypt, and he will burn down the temples of the gods of Egypt.’”
- Ezekiel 6:5 I will lay the corpses of the Israelites before their idols and scatter your bones around your altars.
- Ezekiel 6:13 Then you will know that I am the LORD, when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and leafy oak—the places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols.