Bible Strands
Ezekiel 6:7
The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am the LORD.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — YHWH speaks through Ezekiel to Israel concerning the destruction of their idolatrous centers. The declaration follows a description of widespread urban and religious ruin.
The words — The Hebrew חָלָל (chālāl, "slain") and נָפַל (nāpal, "will fall") describe violent death occurring within the community. The phrase וִֽ/ידַעְתֶּ֖ם (wīdaʿtem, "you will know") paired with אֲנִ֥י יְהוָֽה (ʾănî YHWH, "I am Yahweh") functions as a declarative clause tied directly to the event.
The thread — This formula "you will know that I am the LORD" appears in Exodus 7:5 and 14:4, 14:18 where divine intervention forces recognition of YHWH's sovereignty.
Why it lands — The text demands acknowledgment of divine authority through witnessed consequences rather than through moral instruction. Readers must recognize that the verse presents knowledge of God as an inevitable result of judgment, not as a voluntary spiritual pursuit.
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 the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
Cross-references
- Exodus 7:5 And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out My hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out from among them.”
- Exodus 14:4 And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will pursue them. But I will gain honor by means of Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” So this is what the Israelites did.
- Exodus 14:18 The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I am honored through Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”
- 2 Kings 19:19 And now, O LORD our God, please save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God.”
- Psalms 83:17 May they be ever ashamed and terrified; may they perish in disgrace.
- Jeremiah 14:18 If I go out to the country, I see those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, I see those ravaged by famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land they do not know.’”
- Jeremiah 18:21 Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle.
- Jeremiah 25:33 Those slain by the LORD on that day will be spread from one end of the earth to the other. They will not be mourned, gathered, or buried. They will be like dung lying on the ground.
- Lamentations 2:20 Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
- Lamentations 4:9 Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce.