Ezekiel 23:37

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex) Ezekiel 23:37 appears in the Hebrew Old Testament. The text above is from the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Each word links to its Strong’s number, a concise gloss, and parsing drawn from the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible morphology. Click any word for its full Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) entry.
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Ezekiel 23:37 (World English Bible). Public Domain. Lemma interlinear Bible study tool, https://lemma.gebible.app/v/ezekiel/23/37.

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English Translation
For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery; and they have also caused their sons, whom they bore to me, to pass through [the fire] to them to be devoured.
World English Bible · Public Domain
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Compare translations 3

The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.

Each is an independent rendering of the whole verse — the interlinear is not word-aligned to these translations.

Highlighted words mark where these versions differ — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment.

  • World English Bible Public Domain
    For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery; and they have also caused their sons, whom they bore to me, to pass through [the fire] to them to be devoured.
  • King James Version Public Domain
    That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them.
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
    since they have committed adultery, and since there is blood on their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols, and they have even caused their sons to pass through the fire, as food for their idols.

unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).

Versions to compare (up to 4)

3 of 4 selected

Show all 18 translations

Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.

  • World English Bible Public Domain
    For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery; and they have also caused their sons, whom they bore to me, to pass through [the fire] to them to be devoured.
  • Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
    For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols. They have even sacrificed their children, whom they bore to Me, in the fire as food for their idols.
  • Majority Standard Bible Public Domain
    For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols. They have even sacrificed their children, whom they bore to Me, in the fire as food for their idols.
  • King James Version Public Domain
    That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them.
  • American Standard Version (1901) Public Domain
    For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery; and they have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass through `the fire' unto them to be devoured.
  • Revised Version (1885) Public Domain
    For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery; and they have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass through the fire unto them to be devoured.
  • Geneva Bible (1599) Public Domain
    For they haue played the whores, and blood is in their hands, and with their idoles haue they committed adulterie, and haue also caused their sonnes, whome they bare vnto me, to passe by the fire to be their meate.
  • Douay-Rheims (1899) Public Domain
    Because they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and they have committed fornication with their idols: moreover also their children, whom they bore to me, they have offered to them to be devoured.
  • Young's Literal Translation Public Domain
    For they have committed adultery, And blood `is' in their hands, With their idols they committed adultery, And also their sons whom they bore to Me, They caused to pass over to them for food.
  • Literal Standard Version CC BY-SA 4.0
    For they have committed adultery, || And blood [is] in their hands, || They committed adultery with their idols, || And also their sons whom they bore to Me, || They caused to pass over to them for food.
  • Unlocked Literal Bible CC BY-SA 4.0
    since they have committed adultery, and since there is blood on their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols, and they have even caused their sons to pass through the fire, as food for their idols.
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
    since they have committed adultery, and since there is blood on their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols, and they have even caused their sons to pass through the fire, as food for their idols.
  • Darby Bible Public Domain
    For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also passed over unto them their children, whom they bore unto me, to be devoured.
  • World Messianic Bible Public Domain
    For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols. They have also caused their sons, whom they bore to me, to pass through the fire to them to be devoured.
  • Webster's Bible Public Domain
    That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bore to me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them.
  • Free Bible Version CC BY-SA 4.0
    For they have committed adultery, and they are guilty of murder. They have committed adultery with their idols, and have even offered their children, whom they had for me, as sacrifices to their idols.
  • Bible in Basic English Public Domain
    For she has been false to me, and blood is on her hands, and with her images she has been untrue; and more than this, she made her sons, whom she had by me, go through the fire to them to be burned up.
  • JPS Tanakh (1917) Public Domain
    For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery; and their sons, whom they bore unto Me, they have also set apart unto them to be devoured.

Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).

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לְאָכְלָֽה
ʼoklâh
H402
“to/for · food”
Preposition + Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute
Part of Speech
Preposition + Noun
Type
Common
Gender
Feminine
Number
Singular
State
Absolute
Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H401

TWOT: 85b

food - food, eating - object of devouring, consuming - by wild beasts (figurative) - in fire - of judgment (figurative)
  1. כִּ֣י kîy H3588 “that” Conjunction
  2. נִאֵ֗פוּ nâʼaph H5003 “to commit adultery” Verb, Piel, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural
  3. וְדָם֙ dâm H1818 “and · blood” Conjunction + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute
  4. בִּֽידֵיהֶ֔ן yâd H3027 “in/at · hands · their” Preposition + Noun, Common, Both, Dual, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Feminine, Plural
  5. וְאֶת ʼêth H854 “and · with” Conjunction + Preposition
  6. גִּלּֽוּלֵיהֶ֖ן gillûwl H1544 “idols · their” Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Feminine, Plural
  7. נִאֵ֑פוּ nâʼaph H5003 “to commit adultery” Verb, Piel, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural
  8. וְגַ֤ם gam H1571 “and · also” Conjunction + Particle, Accusative
  9. אֶת ʼêth H853 “-” Particle, Direct Object
  10. בְּנֵיהֶן֙ bên H1121 “sons · their” Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Feminine, Plural
  11. אֲשֶׁ֣ר ʼăsher H834 “which” Particle, Relative
  12. יָֽלְדוּ yâlad H3205 “to bear” Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural
  13. הֶעֱבִ֥ירוּ ʻâbar H5674 “to pass over” Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

16
words
13
distinct lemmas
Prophets
section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is לְאָכְלָֽה food H402 — appearing just 18 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

לְאָכְלָֽה food H402 occurs in 18 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

  • 4 verbs
  • 5 nouns
  • 3 prepositions
  • 1 conjunction
  • 3 particles

Verb forms

  • נִאֵ֗פוּ Piel · Perfect
  • נִאֵ֑פוּ Piel · Perfect
  • יָֽלְדוּ Qal · Perfect
  • הֶעֱבִ֥ירוּ Hiphil · Perfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

  • נִאֵ֗פוּ to commit adultery H5003 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 41 words from the Hebrew and 32 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 16 Hebrew tokens and 22 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

29

Topical passages linked to Ezekiel 23:37 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

  • Ezekiel 16:36 Thus says the Lord Yahweh, Because your filthiness was poured out, and your nakedness uncovered through your prostitution with your lovers; and because of all the idols of your abominations, and for the blood of your children, that you gave to them;
  • Jeremiah 7:31 They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I didn't command, neither came it into my mind.
  • Jeremiah 32:35 They built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through [the fire] to Molech; which I didn't command them, neither did it come into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.
  • Ezekiel 16:20–21 Moreover you have taken your sons and your daughters, whom you have borne to me, and these have you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your prostitution a small matter,
  • Ezekiel 16:38 I will judge you, as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy.
  • Ezekiel 20:26 and I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through [the fire] all that opens the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am Yahweh.
  • Leviticus 18:21 "'You shall not give any of your children to sacrifice to Molech; neither shall you profane the name of your God: I am Yahweh.
  • Leviticus 20:2–5 "Moreover, you shall tell the children of Israel, 'Anyone of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who live as foreigners in Israel, who gives any of his seed to Molech; he shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones.
  • Deuteronomy 12:31 You shall not do so to Yahweh your God: for every abomination to Yahweh, which he hates, have they done to their gods; for even their sons and their daughters do they burn in the fire to their gods.
  • 2 Kings 17:17 They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger.
  • 2 Kings 21:6 He made his son to pass through the fire, and practiced sorcery, and used enchantments, and dealt with those who had familiar spirits, and with wizards: he worked much evil in the sight of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger.
  • 2 Kings 24:4 and also for the innocent blood that he shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood: and Yahweh would not pardon.
  • Psalms 106:37–38 Yes, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.
  • Isaiah 1:15 When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.
  • Jeremiah 7:6 if you don't oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don't shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt:
  • Jeremiah 7:9 Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known,
  • Ezekiel 16:32 A wife who commits adultery! who takes strangers instead of her husband!
  • Ezekiel 16:45 You are the daughter of your mother, who loathes her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children: your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite.
  • Ezekiel 20:31 and when you offer your gifts, when you make your sons to pass through the fire, do you pollute yourselves with all your idols to this day? and shall I be inquired of by you, house of Israel? As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I will not be inquired of by you;
  • Ezekiel 22:2–4 You, son of man, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? then cause her to know all her abominations.
  • Ezekiel 23:4–5 The names of them were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister: and they became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.
  • Ezekiel 23:39 For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, behold, thus have they done in the midst of my house.
  • Ezekiel 23:45 Righteous men, they shall judge them with the judgment of adulteresses, and with the judgment of women who shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.
  • Ezekiel 24:6–9 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Woe to the bloody city, to the caldron whose rust is therein, and whose rust is not gone out of it! take out of it piece after piece; No lot is fallen on it.
  • Hosea 1:2 When Yahweh spoke at the first by Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, "Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery against from Yahweh."
  • Hosea 3:1 Yahweh said to me, "Go again, love a woman loved by another, and an adulteress, even as Yahweh loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins."
  • Hosea 4:2 There is cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; They break boundaries, and bloodshed causes bloodshed.
  • Micah 3:10 They build up Zion with blood, And Jerusalem with iniquity.
  • Luke 13:34 "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused!

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Ezekiel 23:37 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

כִּ֣י נִאֵ֗פוּ וְדָם֙ בִּֽידֵיהֶ֔ן וְאֶת גִּלּֽוּלֵיהֶ֖ן נִאֵ֑פוּ וְגַ֤ם אֶת בְּנֵיהֶן֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר יָֽלְדוּ לִ֔י הֶעֱבִ֥ירוּ לָהֶ֖ם לְאָכְלָֽה

For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery; and they have also caused their sons, whom they bore to me, to pass through [the fire] to them to be devoured.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Ezekiel 23:37 Septuagint · lemma form

ὅτι μοιχάομαι καί αἷμα ἐν χείρ αὐτός ὁ ἐνθύμημα αὐτός μοιχάομαι καί ὁ τέκνον αὐτός ὅς γεννάω ἐγώ διαἄγω αὐτός διά ἔμπυρος

For they have committed adultery, and blood was in their hands, they committed adultery with their devices, and they passed through the fire to them their children which they bore to me.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

1

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

  1. Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)
    אֲרֵי זַנָאִין בְּהֶן וְדַם זַכַּאי אֲשָׁדוּ בִידֵיהֶן וּבָתַר פוּלְחַן טַעֲוַתְהֶן טְעוֹ וְאַף יַת בְּנֵיהֶן דַעֲתִידִין לְמִיפַּק מִנְהֶן תּוּלְדַת קוּדְשָׁא קֳדָמַי אַעֲבִירוּ לְהֵן לְפוּלְחַן:

    (no public-domain English translation for this verse)

    Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Ezekiel 23:37 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Eze 23:37 That they have committed adultery, and blood [is] in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through [the fire], to devour [them].

Ver. 37. And blood is in their hands.] Adultery is the devil’s nest egg, and causeth many sins to be laid one to and upon another; as here, murder, idolatry, &c.

To devour them.] Not only to purge and to dedicate them.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

That is, to be sacrifices to their idols, read Ezek. 16:20.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

37. that they have committed] for they have. The blood on their hands is that of their children whom they sacrifice. See Eze_16:20-21.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

That they have committed adultery,.... Either literally, adultery with their neighbours' wives, which was a prevailing sin with this people; or figuratively, spiritual adultery, that is, idolatry:

and blood is in their hands; the Targum is,

"they have shed the blood of innocents with their hands;''

the blood of prophets and righteous men, sent unto them; and the blood of their infants in sacrificing to idols, as after mentioned:

and with their idols have they committed adultery; by worshipping them, which is spiritual adultery; and this being so explicitly mentioned, it seems to be distinguished from corporeal adultery in the first clause, which may be only there designed; and so Kimchi thinks:

and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them; their children, who were the Lord's by national adoption, and who ought to have been trained up in the worship and service of God, were, in a most barbarous and unnatural manner, caused to pass through the fire, for or to the idols Molech and Baal; and that not merely by way of lustration and dedication, which was sometimes done by passing between two fires, but so as to be devoured and destroyed by the fire.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Blood - One of the chief sins of Manasseh was that he shed innocent blood 2Ki 21:16; 2Ki 24:4.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

They have committed adultery: this seems to refer to corporal uncleannesses.

Blood is in their hands; innocent blood of the murdered prophets and just men.

Committed adultery; spiritual adultery, i.e. idolatry.

Caused their sons to pass through the fire; most unheard of cruelty, and unnatural murders, under pretext of religion! thus Eze 16:20.

To devour them; they destroyed, took away the life of their sons in a barbarous manner.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

37. To pass for them through the fire — On Molech worship see note Eze_16:20-21. The Baal worship was only a little less horrible. (See Vigouroux, “Les Pretres de Baal,” Revue Biblique, 1896.)

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

and blood is on their hands Through their adulteries, they shed blood.

and with their idols they have committed adultery Their adultery was with their idols.

and also their children, etc. And this is the bloodshed that is on their hands (i.e., they masturbated with their hands and they did not repent).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Ezekiel, in the Prophets, opens this verse with 16 words (13 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʼoklâh (“food”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

  1. How does “food” (ʼoklâh) shape what this verse is saying?
  2. Genesis 1:29 shares the word «food» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
  3. “to commit adultery” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
  4. These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
  5. The verb «נִאֵ֗פוּ» is Piel Perfect. How does its form color the action?
  6. Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

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Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

Comparing translations? Open the Compare panel on any verse page to stack up to four side by side.