What Does Exodus 28:17 Mean?
And you will fill it with stone in four rows. The first row will be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle; this will be the first row.
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 thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row.THE KEY
The Hebrew calls the setting מִלֻּאַת (millu’at, “a filling”), from מלא (male, “fill”), the same root as “you shall fill”, the stones are fullness taking form.
THE MEANING
This image speaks of a whole formed by distinct pieces, each holding a place within a shared design. The first stone is named אֹדֶם (odem, “redness”), whose consonants also appear in אָדָם (adam, “human”) and אֲדָמָה (adamah, “ground”).
THE ROOT
מִלֻּאַת
millu’at
GROWS FROM
מלא
מלא (male) means to fill or be full.
“fill it with stone” in this verse is millu’at. The Hebrew names the setting מִלֻּאַת (millu’at, “a filling”), and the verb just before it, מִלֵּאתָ (milleita, “you shall fill”), repeats the same root. The filling and the setting belong to one word-family: fullness takes form through what is placed within it.
ALSO GROWS
milleita: To fill.
מִלֵּאתָ
This is the verb used in the same phrase, echoing the root of “settings.”
melo: That which is full or fills.
מְלֹא
It makes visible the shared idea inside the setting: a fullness given shape.
אֹדֶם
odem
GROWS FROM
אדם
אדם (’adam) carries the sense of redness or being ruddy.
“sardius” in this verse is odem. The Hebrew calls this stone by its redness. The same consonants appear in אָדָם (adam, “human”) and אֲדָמָה (adamah, “ground”), linking the stone’s color to the word-family of human life and soil.
ALSO GROWS
adom: Red or ruddy.
אָדֹם
It reveals the color held in the Hebrew name for the stone.
adam: Human being; ground-being.
אָדָם
The shared consonants place the stone’s redness beside the word for the human.
adamah: The soil or ground.
אֲדָמָה
It extends the same word-family from the red stone to the ground from which human life is formed.
בָּרֶקֶת
bareqet
GROWS FROM
ברק
ברק (baraq) means to flash or gleam; it also names lightning.
“carbuncle” in this verse is bareqet. The Hebrew name carries the flash of a bright stone. Its root also names lightning, so the word holds the small gleam of the gem and the sky’s sudden brightness together.
ALSO GROWS
baraq: Lightning or a sudden flash.
בָּרָק
It reveals the brightness carried by the stone’s name.
baraq: To shine or flash.
בָּרַק
It connects the gem’s appearance to the action expressed by its root.
THE PATTERN
A whole takes shape as distinct parts are each placed in an ordered relation.
The stones will be twelve, according to the names of the children of Israel, like the engravings of a seal, each with its own name according to the twelve tribes.But now God has set the limbs, each one of them, in the body, as he willed.You also, as living stones, are built up into a house of breath, a set-apart priesthood, to carry up sacrifices of breath, well received by God through Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.The Hebrew name for the first stone, אֹדֶם (odem, “redness”), shares the consonants אדם with אָדָם (adam, “human”) and אֲדָמָה (adamah, “ground”). Genesis places the human and the ground in the same word-family, so the stone’s name carries the color of earth-born life.
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