What Does Exodus 28:9 Mean?
And you will take two onyx stones, and engrave on them the names of the children of Israel.
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 take two onyx stones, and grave on them the names of the children of Israel:THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for engraving also means opening: the names are cut into stone so they can be carried into view.
THE MEANING
The names of Israel are given a durable form by being engraved on stone. A name carries the nature of the one named, and here that identity is made visible in a mark that can be borne.
THE ROOT
וּפִתַּחְתָּ
u-fittachta
GROWS FROM
פתח
Open; in this verb form, engrave.
“engrave on them” in this verse is u-fittachta. The verb for engraving grows from פתח (pataḥ, open), which also gives language for an opening and a key. The engraved names are shemot (שְׁמוֹת, shemot, names), from shem (שֵׁם, shem, name as nature): the stone makes the named people’s identity visible in a lasting cut.
ALSO GROWS
petaḥ: Opening, doorway
פֶּתַח
This branch keeps the root’s basic sense of opening, which illuminates engraving as a cut that opens the stone’s surface.
mafteaḥ: Key
מַפְתֵּחַ
A key opens access; this branch carries the same root into an object that makes an opening usable.
THE PATTERN
Belonging is made present when names are carried, engraved, or written in a durable place.
And you will set the two stones on the shoulders of the ephod, as stones of remembrance for the children of Israel, and Aaron will carry their names before the LORD on his two shoulders, for a remembrance.Behold, I have carved you upon the palms of my hands; your walls are always before me.Yet do not rejoice in this, that the breaths submit to you, but rejoice instead that your names have been written in the heavens.THE THREAD
By the work of a stone-cutter, like the openings of a seal, you will open the two stones with the names of the children of Israel. You will make them set in settings of gold.This verse repeats פתח in its words for engraving and for the engraver’s work. The same root links the cut in the stone with the names fixed there.
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