Ezekiel 7:19 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ezekiel 7:19
They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
to throw out · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
silver
כַּסְפָּ֞םkas.Pam
H3701
silver (from its pale color) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
streets
בַּחוּצ֣וֹתba.chu.Tzot
H2351
properly · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine plural absolute
gold
וּזְהָבָם֮u.ze.ha.Vam
H2091
gold · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
removed
לְנִדָּ֣הle.ni.Dah
H5079
properly · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute
silver
כַּסְפָּ֨םkas.Pam
H3701
silver (from its pale color) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Proverbs 11:4 Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death.
Zephaniah 1:18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD’s wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by th…
Ezekiel 14:7 For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his ido…
Luke 12:19-20 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
Isaiah 2:20 In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and t…
Matthew 16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Job 20:12-23 Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue;
Ecclesiastes 5:10 He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 7:16-22
We have attended the fate of those that are cut off, and are now to attend the flight of those that have an opportunity of escaping the danger; some of them shall escape (Eze 7:16), but what the better? As good die once as, in a miserable life, die a thousand deaths, and escape only like Cain to be fugitives and vagabonds, and afraid of being slain by every one they meet; so shall these be.
I. They shall have no comfort or satisfaction in their own minds, but be in continual anguish and terror; for, wherever they go, they carry about with them guilty consciences, which make them a burden to themselves. 1. They shall be always solitary and under prevailing melancholy; they shall not be in the…
cast . . . silver in . . . streets--just retribution; they had abused their silver and gold by converting them into idols, "the stumbling-block of their iniquity" (Eze 14:3-4, that is, an occasion of sinning); so these silver and gold idols, so far from "being able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath" (see Pro 11:4), shall, in despair, be cast by them into the streets as a prey to the foe, by whom they shall be "removed" (GROTIUS translates as the Margin, "shall be despised as an unclean thing"); or rather, as suits the parallelism, "shall be put away from them" by the Jews [CALVIN]. "They (the silver and gold) shall not satisfy their souls," that is, their cravings of appetite an…
They shall cast their silver in the streets - Their riches can be of no use; as in a time of famine there is no necessary of life to be purchased, and gold and silver cannot fill their bowels.
It is the stumbling-block of their iniquity - They loved riches, and placed in the possession of them their supreme happiness. Now they find a pound of gold not worth an ounce of bread.
John Gill on Ezekiel 7:19
The Church Fathers
(Verse 19.) Their silver will be thrown away in the streets, and their gold will be like garbage. Septuagint: Their silver will be thrown away in the streets, and their gold will be despised. In the midst of flight and captivity, they will throw away their riches and the weight of gold and silver on the streets, only seeking to save their own lives, so that they are not burdened by what was once luxury. Otherwise, according to the anagoge, all the silver of the captives and fugitives from Jerusalem will be thrown away in the streets, on the wide and spacious road that leads to death, because they have abandoned the narrow path of salvation. But all gold will be considered worthless, even esteemed as dung and filth. For one cannot have purity who is outside the Church of the Lord. Their silver and gold will not be able to save them on the day of the wrath of the Lord. And this is not found in the Septuagint. Without a doubt, during times of siege and famine, it does not free those hungry for gold and silver, and their teeth are blunted like the hardest stone. Finally, it follows: They will not satisfy their souls, and their bellies will not be filled. In the presence of evil, we have learned that many rich people, depleted by poverty, have had the end of beggars, among silk, gems, and weights of gold and silver. But the silver and gold of those who are outside the Church cannot free the souls of the possessors on the day of the Lord's wrath; instead, it shows that they will have eternal hunger and be tormented with an empty stomach. This testimony confirms it, saying: The redemption of a man's soul is his own wealth (Prov. XIII, 8). Our true riches are those which Christ's truth has taught us (Luke 16), who commanded us to make for ourselves friends with unrighteous wealth, who will receive us into eternal dwellings. Because a scandal of iniquity has occurred among them. Therefore, he says, the possessors of gold and silver will not be satisfied, nor will their stomachs be filled, because this very gold and silver has become a scandal of their crimes. But it signifies idols, which are made of gold and silver, condemn their own creators. For this reason, the Seventy translated it: because the torments of their iniquities were such that they would be tormented in their own iniquity and understand that they have turned the gifts of God into blasphemy.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Anger Of God, The · Manifested in judgments and afflictions — Manifested in judgments and afflictions
Gold · Used as money — Used as money
Money · Gold used as — Gold used as
Rich, The · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Stumbling · .R. V.) — .R. V.)
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
gold
וּזְהָבָ֜םu.ze.ha.Vam
H2091
gold · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
able
יוּכַ֣לyu.Khal
H3201
to be able · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
deliver
לְהַצִּילָ֗םle.ha.tzi.Lam
H5337
to snatch away · preposition + verb, hiphil infinitive construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
day
בְּיוֹם֙be.yOm
H3117
a day (as the warm hours) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
wrath
עֶבְרַ֣ת'ev.Rat
H5678
an outburst of passion · noun, common feminine singular construct
LORD
יְהוָ֔הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
satisfy
יְשַׂבֵּ֔עוּye.sa.Be.'u
H7646
to sate · verb, piel imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
souls
נַפְשָׁם֙naf.Sham
H5315
properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
fill
יְמַלֵּ֑אוּye.ma.Le.'u
H4390
to fill or (intransitively) be full of · verb, piel imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
bowels
וּמֵעֵיהֶ֖םu.me.'ei.Hem
H4578
used only in plural the intestines · conjunction + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
stumblingblock
מִכְשׁ֥וֹלmikh.Shol
H4383
a stumbling-block · noun, common masculine singular construct
iniquity
עֲוֹנָ֖ם'a.vo.Nam
H5771
perversity · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed,.... As being of no use unto them to preserve them from famine and pestilence, and as being an hinderance to them in their flight from the enemy. Kimchi observes that this may be interpreted of their idols of gold and silver, which shall now be had in contempt by them, and cast away, when they shall find they cannot save them from ruin; see Isaiah 2:20;
their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord; these can neither deliver from temporal judgments nor from wrath to come; see Proverbs 10:2; nor idols made of them:
they shall not satisfy their souls, nor fill thei…
Ezekiel 7:19
19. They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
19. Et argentum suum per compita projicient, et aurum ipsorum in disjectionem [163] erit: argentum eorum et aurum eorum non poterit ad liber andum ipsos in die excandescenti? Iehovae: animam suam non satiaunt et viscera sua non replebunt, quia offendiculum iniquitatis ipsorum fuit.
Now the Prophet threatens that the desperation of the people would be so great that they would forget bo…
Third strophe
Thus will they fall into irresistible destruction; even their silver and gold they will not rescue, but will cast it away as useless, and leave it for the enemy. - Eze 7:15. The sword without, and pestilence and famine within: he who is in the field will die by the sword; and famine and pestilence will devour him that is in the city. Eze 7:16. And if their escaped ones escape, they will be upon the mountains like the doves of the valleys, all moaning, every one for his iniquity. Eze 7:17. All hands will become feeble, and all knees flow with water. Eze 7:18. They will gird themselves with sackcloth, and terrors will cover them; on all faces there will be shame, and baldness on…
Even silver and gold, the traditional last resorts in times of crisis, would be unable to save or satisfy their owners. They would dispose of them like worthless trash (literally impurity), something hateful and disgusting that they could not wait to be rid of.