What Does Ezekiel 13:1 Mean?
And the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
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 the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “word” can also mean “matter”: what comes to Ezekiel is speech that arrives as something real to meet.
THE MEANING
The word addresses you as something received before it becomes something you can say. Its arrival comes before your explanation; you do not have to manufacture the truth that meets you now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that truth is valid only when you originate it yourself.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר
devar
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; as a noun, a spoken word or matter.
Davar can mean both “word” and “matter” or “thing,” holding speech and what it speaks about together. Here, the LORD’s speech comes to Ezekiel before he speaks: the message is received as an address, not made up by its hearer.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The same word can name speech and a matter, suggesting the message arrives as something to meet, not merely as sound.
dibber: He spoke; to speak or utter.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal form from the same root echoes “saying”: the word that comes is spoken address.
THE PATTERN
Divine speech is received before it is voiced, and its reception makes it active within the hearer.
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.And for this reason we also thank God without leaving a gap. For when you took hold of the word of God that you heard from us, you received it not as the word of humankind, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also works in you who trust.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.The same Hebrew word, davar (דָּבָר), names the word through which the heavens are made. That connection opens Ezekiel’s verse onto speech as something that arrives with force, not as a sound that simply passes.
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