What Does Esther 4:12 Mean?
And they told Mordecai the words of Esther.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And they told to Mordecai Esther’s words.THE KEY
The Hebrew for “told” means “made known”: Esther’s words are brought into Mordecai’s awareness.
THE MEANING
Esther’s words reach Mordecai through other people; what she has said becomes present to someone who did not hear it from her directly. The verse shows speech crossing the distance between people through a human carrier.
THE ROOT
וַיַּגִּידוּ
vayyaggidu
GROWS FROM
נגד
To make known, declare, or bring into view.
“told” in this verse is vayyaggidu. The verb carries more than the idea of passing along speech: it makes Esther’s words known to Mordecai. The report brings her words into his awareness.
ALSO GROWS
higgid: He declared or told.
הִגִּיד
This form shares the root’s sense of making something known.
neged: Before, in front of, or opposite.
נֶגֶד
Its sense of what stands before someone echoes how a report brings its content into view.
דִּבְרֵי
divrei
GROWS FROM
דבר
Speech, words, or a matter.
The Hebrew for “words” can also mean a matter or affair. Esther’s speech reaches Mordecai as both spoken words and the substance she is communicating.
ALSO GROWS
davar: A word, matter, thing, or affair.
דָּבָר
The same word can name spoken content or the matter itself.
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
The shared root keeps the words being carried connected to the act of speaking them.
THE PATTERN
A message changes its reach when someone carries another person’s words into someone else’s awareness.
And he said, Who told you that you were bare? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?And Samuel set before him every word, and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the LORD. Let him do what is good in his eyes.I have made your nature known to them, and I will make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.THE THREAD
And he said, Who told you that you were bare? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?The Hebrew verb translated “told” belongs to the same root family in both verses: to tell is to make known. In Esther, her words reach Mordecai; in Genesis, the question turns to how knowledge reached someone.
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