What Does Ezekiel 10:18 Mean?
Then the weight of the LORD went out from the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim.
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
Then the glory of the LORD departed from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubims.THE KEY
The glory is weight in motion: it leaves the threshold, then takes its stand over the cherubim.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s weight leaves the house’s threshold and remains present over the cherubim. Departure from one place and presence in another exist together in this scene. The building is not the boundary of the LORD’s presence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that God’s presence is confined to a sacred place, so leaving that place means being gone.
THE ROOT
כְּבוֹד
kavod
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty.
Kavod carries the sense of weight: what is glorious is substantial and bears significance. Here, that weight does not vanish as it departs; it takes a new position over the cherubim.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy, weighty.
כָּבֵד
This branch makes the physical sense of kavod visible: glory carries weight.
kibbēd: To honor or treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
Honor is linked to recognizing the weight or significance of someone.
וַיֵּצֵא
vayyēṣēʾ
GROWS FROM
יצא
y-ts-ʾ
To go out or come forth.
“went out” in this verse is vayyēṣēʾ. The verb gives the glory a direction: it moves out from the threshold. The next clause shows that this going out leads to a new position over the cherubim.
ALSO GROWS
yetsi’ah: Going out, departure.
יְצִיאָה
This noun keeps the movement in view: departure is an act of leaving a place.
motsa: An exit or outlet.
מוֹצָא
The branch suggests an opening through which something comes forth, fitting the glory’s movement from the house’s threshold.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s weight is portrayed as mobile: it can fill a dwelling, depart a city, and enter through a gate.
And the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the weight of the LORD filled the dwelling.And the weight of the LORD went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city.Lift up your heads, O gates; and be lifted up, O doors of the ages; and the King of weight enters.THE THREAD
And the weight of the LORD came into the house by the way of the gate whose face turns to the east.The same כָּבוֹד (kavod, weight or glory) that leaves the house here later comes back through the east-facing gate. Its departure and return show the weight moving between places rather than being bound to one threshold.
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