I lifted up mine hand unto them also in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse them through the countries;

EZEKIEL 20:23KJV
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Ezekiel 20:23 (KJV)

What does Ezekiel 20:23 mean?

Ezekiel 20:23 describes God’s sworn warning to the Israelites in the wilderness. God declares that he would scatter them among other peoples and lands. The warning comes in an account of Israel’s repeated refusal to follow his instructions.

The speaker is God, whose words Ezekiel reports. “I lifted up mine hand” pictures the gesture of taking an oath. After the concern for God’s name in verse 22, verse 23 turns to the warning God gave the wilderness generation.

The Hebrew behind Ezekiel 20:23

  • “heathen” — גּוֹיִם (goyim): The word means nations or peoples. In this verse, the KJV’s “heathen” refers to other nations among whom the Israelites would be scattered.
  • “countries” — אֲרָצוֹת (aratsot): The word means lands. The plural helps picture the people spread across multiple places, rather than sent to one destination.

Why Ezekiel 20:23 matters

  • The warning is tied to the people’s conduct. Verse 24 says they had rejected God’s instructions, treated his Sabbaths as unimportant, and looked to their fathers’ idols.
  • The scattering reaches beyond Israel’s own community. The phrases “among the heathen” and “through the countries” picture Israelites living among other nations in many lands.
  • Ezekiel places the warning in the wilderness, before the people entered the land promised to them. That setting makes the threat part of the story God recounts to Ezekiel’s listeners, rather than a warning addressed only to the people standing before Ezekiel.

Where else these words appear

“disperse” Hebrew H2219 · used in 38 verses

  • Exodus 32:20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.
  • Proverbs 20:26 A wise king scattereth the wicked, and bringeth the wheel over them.
  • Ezekiel 5:12 A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee: and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.

“scatter” Hebrew H6327 · used in 66 verses

  • Genesis 10:18 And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad.
  • Job 18:11 Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.
  • Ezekiel 11:17 Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.