Ezekiel 12:20

World English Bible (2000)

The cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall be a desolation; and you shall know that I am Yahweh.

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

וְהֶעָרִ֤ים הַנּֽוֹשָׁבוֹת֙ תֶּחֱרַ֔בְנָה וְהָאָ֖רֶץ שְׁמָמָ֣ה תִֽהְיֶ֑ה וִֽידַעְתֶּ֖ם כִּֽי־אֲנִ֥י יְהוָֽה׃

Transliteration

And-the-ʿārîm the-nôšāḇôṯ teḥĕraḇnāh and-the-ʾāreṣ šəmāmâ ṯihyeh and-wîḏaʿtem that-I YHWH

Grammar Details

• *ʿārîm*: common noun, feminine plural with definite article - the cities
• *nôšāḇôṯ*: niphal participle, feminine plural with definite article - the inhabited
• *teḥĕraḇnāh*: qal imperfect, 3rd feminine plural - they will be laid waste
• *ʾāreṣ*: common noun, feminine singular with definite article - the land
• *šəmāmâ*: common noun, feminine singular - desolation
• *ṯihyeh*: qal imperfect, 3rd feminine singular - it will be
• *wîḏaʿtem*: qal perfect, 2nd masculine plural - you will know

Word Meanings

• *šəmāmâ*: desolation/waste/devastation

Referenced Verses

• Isa 7:23-24 : 23 It will happen in that day that every place where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silver shekels, shall be for briers and thorns. 24 People will go there with arrows and with bow, because all the land will be briers and thorns.
• Jer 4:7 : 7 A lion is gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations; he is on his way, he is gone forth from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.
• Jer 25:9 : 9 behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, says Yahweh, and [I will send] to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.
• Isa 3:26 : 26 Her gates shall lament and mourn; and she shall be desolate and sit on the ground.
• Jer 34:22 : 22 Behold, I will command, says Yahweh, and cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.
• Lam 5:18 : 18 For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: The foxes walk on it.
• Ezek 15:6 : 6 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: As the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
• Ezek 15:8 : 8 I will make the land desolate, because they have committed a trespass, says the Lord Yahweh.
• Dan 9:17 : 17 Now therefore, our God, listen to the prayer of your servant, and to his petitions, and cause your face to shine on your sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake.
• Jer 4:23-29 : 23 I saw the earth, and, behold, it was waste and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. 24 I saw the mountains, and behold, they trembled, and all the hills moved back and forth. 25 I saw, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the sky had fled. 26 I saw, and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of Yahweh, [and] before his fierce anger. 27 For thus says Yahweh, "The whole land shall be a desolation; yet will I not make a full end. 28 For this the earth will mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and I have not repented, neither will I turn back from it." 29 Every city flees for the noise of the horsemen and archers; they go into the thickets, and climb up on the rocks: every city is forsaken, and not a man dwells therein.
• Jer 12:10-12 : 10 Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. 11 They have made it a desolation; it mourns to me, being desolate; the whole land is made desolate, because no man lays it to heart. 12 Destroyers are come on all the bare heights in the wilderness; for the sword of Yahweh devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land: no flesh has peace.
• Jer 16:9 : 9 For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.
• Jer 19:11 : 11 and shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, that can't be made whole again; and they shall bury in Topheth, until there be no place to bury.
• Jer 24:8-9 : 8 As the bad figs, which can't be eaten, they are so bad, surely thus says Yahweh, So will I give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt, 9 I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil; to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I shall drive them. 10 I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, until they be consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.
• Isa 24:3 : 3 The earth will be utterly emptied and utterly laid waste; for Yahweh has spoken this word.
• Isa 24:12 : 12 The city is left in desolation, and the gate is struck with destruction.
• Isa 64:10-11 : 10 Your holy cities are become a wilderness, Zion is become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. 11 Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised you, is burned with fire; and all our pleasant places are laid waste.