Ezekiel 16:33
Sheaths of the Soul
They are giving to all those who prostitute a bounty11 and you, your eternal self have given the self eternal sheaths of yourself12 to all those loving yourself, and you are bribing with the self eternal sign of themselves to come in toward yourself from the circuit/circle within your acts of harlotry!Footnote:
| Eze. 16:33 | The Hebrew term נדה primarily carries the sense of “to droop, languish, be weak, or be afflicted”, with additional legal usage referring to menstrual impurity or the menstruant (see Leviticus and related ritual texts). In poetic or narrative contexts, the meaning can extend metaphorically to “affliction, separation, or weakness”, depending on context. In Ezekiel 16:33, the noun נֵדֶה appears in a unique context describing payments associated with prostitution. Lexical sources (Strong’s H5077, BDB, NASB) treat it as a hapax legomenon, translating it as “gift,” “bounty,” or “reward”, derived from the root נָדָה in the sense of “freely casting or flinging”. The semantic pathway is thus:
The verb שָׁחַד provides us more understanding of this semantic field, meaning “to bribe, give inducement, or corrupt by material reward.” The 2nd person feminine singular imperfect ותשחדי (“and you will give a bribe”) refers to the action of giving the gift, while נדה denotes the bounty/gift itself. |