What Does Ezekiel 12:5 Mean?
Dig through the wall before their eyes, and go out through it.
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
Dig thou through the wall in their sight, and carry out thereby.THE KEY
The way out is made in the wall itself, and “carry out” is Hebrew’s causative of “go out”: an emergence made visible.
THE MEANING
You are before a wall while people watch; the way through is cut into the barrier, and what is brought out passes through that breach. Departure is visible work, made through the very boundary that blocks the way.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an enclosing wall means there is no way out: here, a way is cut through that very wall.
THE ROOT
חֳתָר
ḥŏṯār
GROWS FROM
חתר
To dig or bore through.
“dig through” in this verse is ḥŏṯār. The root חתר (ḥ-t-r) carries the force of tunneling through a barrier. Its branch מַחְתֶּרֶת (maḥteret), “a break-in made by digging,” holds both passage and intrusion in the same image: the wall is breached, not opened like a door.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṯar: To dig or bore through.
חָתַר
This is the root verb: the route out begins as penetration of the wall.
maḥteret: A break-in made by digging; a breach.
מַחְתֶּרֶת
This noun from the same root shows the force of the act: a way through is made by breaking the boundary.
וְהוֹצֵאתָ
wəhôṣēʾtā
GROWS FROM
יצא
To go out or emerge.
“go out through it” in this verse is wəhôṣēʾtā. The word וְהוֹצֵאתָ (wəhôṣēʾtā) is the causative form of יצא (yāṣāʾ): “make go out,” or “bring forth.” English can make “carry out” sound like transport alone; the Hebrew ties it to emergence, so bringing something out and going out share one seed.
ALSO GROWS
yāṣāʾ: To go out or emerge.
יָצָא
The basic verb names the movement that “carry out” makes possible.
môṣāʾ: A going forth, outlet, or source.
מוֹצָא
This branch names both the outward movement and the place or point from which something comes forth.
THE PATTERN
A blocked passage becomes a route when the boundary itself is breached or opened.
And the children of Israel came into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them, on their right hand and on their left.The one who breaks through goes up before them. They break through, pass through the gate, and go out through it. Their king passes before them, and the LORD is at their head.A fresh and living way that he opened anew for us through the hanging curtain of his flesh;THE THREAD
And the lifted one who is among them shall lift upon his shoulder in the dark, and shall go out. They shall dig through the wall to bring out through it. He shall cover his face, so that he does not see the earth with his eye.This verse repeats חתר (ḥ-t-r, “dig through”) and יצא (y-ṣ-ʾ, “go out”), the root behind “carry out” here. What verse 12:5 compresses becomes explicit: the wall is dug through so someone can emerge through it.
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