Bible Strands
Ezekiel 6:5
I will lay the corpses of the Israelites before their idols and scatter your bones around your altars.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God speaks through Ezekiel to the Israelites during a prophetic declaration of judgment against their idolatry. The prophecy addresses the immediate consequence of their covenant violation before detailing the destruction of their worship sites.
The words — The Hebrew פִּגְרֵי (pigrei) literally means "corpses" or "dead bodies," and זֵרִיתִי (zeriti) means "I will scatter" or "disperse." These terms emphasize the physical desecration and humiliation of the dead.
The thread — This imagery of corpses before idols and scattered bones parallels Josiah’s desecration of pagan altars in 2 Kings 23:14 and the future exile of Judah’s bones in Jeremiah 8:1. The motif recurs in prophetic judgments where idolatry meets its own defiled worship spaces.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that idolatry results in self-defilement and divine reversal of sacred space. It calls the reader to abandon false worship before judgment renders it permanent.
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 lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.
Cross-references
- 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.
- 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.