Ezekiel 38:20

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

so that the fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and the animals of the field, and all creeping things who creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the surface of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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הַמַּדְרֵג֔וֹת

madrêgâh

H4095

“the · steep places”

Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute

Appears 2× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Song of Solomon 2:14

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from an unused root meaning to step

TWOT: 452a

steep place, steep

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 →

27: words
21: distinct lemmas
Prophets: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is הַמַּדְרֵג֔וֹת steep place H4095 — appearing just 2 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הַמַּדְרֵג֔וֹת steep place H4095 occurs in 2 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Song of Solomon 2:14

Grammatical profile

5 verbs
19 nouns
2 prepositions
1 particle

Verb forms

וְרָעֲשׁ֣וּ Qal · Sequential Perfect
הָרֹמֵ֣שׂ Qal · Participle Active
וְנֶהֶרְס֣וּ Niphal · Sequential Perfect
וְנָֽפְלוּ֙ Qal · Sequential Perfect
תִּפּֽוֹל Qal · Imperfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

וְכָל all H3605 ×3
מִפָּנַ֡י face H6440 ×2
עַל upon H5921 ×2
הָֽאֲדָמָ֔ה ground H127 ×2
וְנָֽפְלוּ֙ to fall H5307 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 66 words from the Hebrew and 67 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 27 Hebrew tokens and 52 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

Topical passages linked to Ezekiel 38:20 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Hosea 4:3 Therefore the land will mourn, And everyone who dwells therein will waste away. All living things in her, Even the animals of the field and the birds of the sky; Yes, the fish of the sea also die.
Nahum 1:4–6 He rebukes the sea, and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers. Bashan languishes, and Carmel; and the flower of Lebanon languishes.
Zechariah 14:4–5 His feet will stand in that day on the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in two, from east to west, making a very great valley. Half of the mountain will move toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
Revelation 6:12–13 I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood.
Isaiah 30:25 There shall be on every lofty mountain, and on every high hill, brooks [and] streams of waters, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
Jeremiah 4:23–26 I saw the earth, and, behold, it was waste and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.
2 Corinthians 10:4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds,

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 38:20 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְרָעֲשׁ֣וּ מִפָּנַ֡י דְּגֵ֣י הַיָּם֩ וְע֨וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֜יִם וְחַיַּ֣ת הַשָּׂדֶ֗ה וְכָל הָרֶ֨מֶשׂ֙ הָרֹמֵ֣שׂ עַל הָֽאֲדָמָ֔ה וְכֹל֙ הָֽאָדָ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֖ר עַל פְּנֵ֣י הָאֲדָמָ֑ה וְנֶהֶרְס֣וּ הֶהָרִ֗ים וְנָֽפְלוּ֙ הַמַּדְרֵג֔וֹת וְכָל חוֹמָ֖ה לָאָ֥רֶץ תִּפּֽוֹל

so that the fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and the animals of the field, and all creeping things who creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the surface of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Ezekiel 38:20 Septuagint · lemma form

καί σείω ἀπό πρόσωπον κύριος ὁ ἰχθύς ὁ θάλασσα καί ὁ πετεινόν ὁ οὐρανός καί ὁ θηρίον ὁ πεδίον καί πᾶς ὁ ἑρπετόν ὁ ἕρπω ἐπί ὁ γῆ καί πᾶς ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὁ ἐπί πρόσωπον ὁ γῆ καί ῥηγνύναι ὁ ὄρος καί πίπτω ὁ φάραγξ καί πᾶς τεῖχος ἐπί ὁ γῆ πίπτω

and the fish of the sea shall quake at the presence of the Lord, and the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the field, and all the reptiles that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are on the face of the earth; and the mountains shall be torn, and the valleys shall fall, and every wall on the land shall fall.

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)

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.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וִיזוּעוּן מִן קֳדָמַי נוּנֵי יַמָא וְעוֹפָא דִשְׁמַיָא וְחַיַת בָּרָא וְכָל רִחֲשָׁא דְרָחֵישׁ עַל אַרְעָא וְכָל אֱנָשָׁא דִי עַל אַפֵּי אַרְעָא וְיִתְפַּגְרוּן טוּרַיָא וְיִתְתַּלְשׁוּן מִגְדָלַיָא וְכָל שׁוּר רָם לְאַרְעָא יִתְחַמָר:

(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 38:20 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 38:20 So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that [are] upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.

Ver. 20. Shall shake at my presence.] And wriggle into their holes, as worms do in time of thunder.

And the mountains shall be thrown down.] Hyperbolical threats, to set forth the dreadfulness of God’s fierce wrath, which burns as low as hell itself.

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

All means whereby man should think to save himself, shall fail, the affliction in those days shall be so great, and the enemies’ destruction shall be so terrible.

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

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

fishes--disturbed by the fleets which I will bring.

fowls, &c.--frightened at the sight of so many men: an ideal picture.

mountains--that is, the fortresses on the mountains.

steep places--literally, "stairs" (Sol 2:14); steep terraces for vines on the sides of hills, to prevent the earth being washed down by the rains.

every wall--of towns.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(20) The mountains shall be thrown down.—In Eze_38:19-22 the whole earth, animate and inanimate, is represented as affected by the terrible judgment of the Almighty upon His enemies. Such, as has been already noted, is the common language of prophecy in describing great moral events, and it is especially used in connection with the judgments of the last day.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

20. The terror of creation before the majesty of Jehovah shall be universal, and all that is high shall be brought down. The passage agrees with the usual prophetic descriptions of the day of the Lord, cf. Zep_1:1 seq.; Isaiah 2-3; Jer_4:23-26. It describes Jehovah’s final manifestation of himself in his fury and jealousy. In the earlier prophets this manifestation of his majesty by Jehovah usually precedes or accompanies the final restoration of his people, here it is postponed until long after they have entered upon the rest of God in their own land. In other words that which earlier writers view as one scene, comprising Jehovah’s revelation of himself and the final restoration of his people, is resolved into two, one of which takes place long after the other. The same difference is observable in the New Test. between the representation of the Apocalyptist and that of the other writers.

the steep places] the clefts of the hills. In Son_2:14 the term is rendered “stairs,” but it is parallel to “clefts of the rock,” and has the same general meaning.

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

And I will call for a sword against him,.... That is, against Gog; or, as I would choose to render the words, "for I will call for a sword", so the particle is rendered, Eze 38:19 and which Noldius (u) agrees to; and this gives a reason why there should be such a commotion in the land of Israel; because the Lord, who has the swords of princes at his command, will call for the Christian kings to come to the assistance of the Jews, and fight against the Turk: who will pursue him

throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord God; throughout the land of Israel, which is mountainous; and is called the Lord's, because he hath chosen it for his people, given it to them, and now dwelt among them; and in all parts of it where the enemy is, the sword of the Jews, and of those princes that should come in to their assistance at the call of God, shall be sent against them, and cut them off: and not only so,

but every man's sword shall be against his brother; as the swords of the Midianites were, Jdg 7:22, and of the enemies of Jehoshaphat, Ch2 20:22. The Turkish army will consist of a mixed people of many nations, who will quarrel among themselves, and destroy one another.

(u) Concordant. Ebr. Partic. p. 285, 286.

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

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

Here is a lofty strain indeed, giving us the description of the tokens of God’s presence against his enemies; the effects of his displeasure against them are seen on all the creatures, sensible that their Maker is angry, though they know not with whom or for what. If to be interpreted literally, we shall find some parallels: when our God. marched before Israel through the Red Sea, as the waters, so the fishes, saw, trembled, and fled, Psa 77:16,19. When he breaketh the cedars, Psa 29:5, and discovers the forests, the birds that make their nests there shake at his presence and power. When Sinai trembled, Lebanon and Sirion skipped like a young unicorn, the creeping things in them no doubt shook, and the beasts feeding on them did no less, Psa 29:6. But men, apprehensive of God’s displeasure, and shaken with their own guilt, shall much more shake. But I think it is a very elegant allusive description of those strange troubles and consternation of men’s minds at that day, and so metaphorically to be understood. Mountains may be great ones. Or, possibly, when God comes to judge Gog, he will by his mighty power give the world so great a shake, that it shall be a preface to his dreadful judgment day.

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

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

and the cliffs shall fall [Heb. הַמַּדְרִגוֹת.] I heard that they are perpendicular hanging rocks, which appear to be falling, but I say that they are mounds of the towers, for they dig around and cast up the earth in the center to raise the mound, and it is made into steps, eschelons, eschillons in Old French, steps, in order that the earth remain, and after it is pressed down well, they remove the forms that hold up the step.

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 27 words (21 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is madrêgâh (“steep place”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “steep place” (madrêgâh) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Song of Solomon 2:14 shares the word «steep place» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“all” occurs 3× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
The verb «וְרָעֲשׁ֣וּ» is Qal Sequential Perfect. How does its form color the action?
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

This verse counts 27 Hebrew ↔ 52 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 34 words in this verse.
“all” occurs 3× in this single verse.
21 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 27 words in this verse.