Verse Lens · Context pointer
Ezekiel 44:22 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 22. 22Neither shall they take for their wives a widow, nor her that is put away: but they shall take maidens of the seed of the house of Israel, or a widow that had a priest before.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Role in This Section
Ezekiel's measured final vision states or reports “Neither shall they take for their wives a widow, nor her that is put away” at Ezekiel 44:22 as a specific part of “Zadokite Priests Receive Dress, Hair, Marriage, Teaching, and Purity Rules.”
Read It With
- Ezekiel 44:15–27
Read Ezekiel 44:22 with 44:15–27. By itself, “Neither shall they take for their wives a widow, nor her that is put away” can be detached from the speaker, addressee, date, exilic horizon, visionary movement, or outcome that gives it force. The complete unit establishes: Zadok's descendants approach the altar under detailed clothing, grooming, drink, marriage, teaching, judging, Sabbath, and corpse-contact rules, with specified cleansing after defilement.
Why It Needs Context
Keep the line with Ezekiel 44:15–27. Ezekiel's measured final vision states or reports “Neither shall they take for their wives a widow, nor her that is put away” at Ezekiel 44:22 as a specific part of “Zadokite Priests Receive Dress, Hair, Marriage, Teaching, and Purity Rules.” The literary form and this limit govern it: Priestly regulation does not authorize clerical supremacy, policing bodies, misogyny, disability stigma, or hiding abuse behind holiness.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Ezekiel 44:15–27 — Zadokite Priests Receive Dress, Hair, Marriage, Teaching, and Purity RulesSources used for this context pointer
How certain is this explanation? probable
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Ezekiel 44:15–27, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Ezekiel
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a critical apparatus or interpretation.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Ezek.xml, OSIS 44:15–27
Open the fixed Hebrew Ezekiel file ↗