What Does Ezekiel 13:5 Mean?
You have not climbed into the breaches, nor built up the wall for the house of Israel, that it might stand in battle on the day of the LORD.
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
Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.THE KEY
Protection depends on someone entering the breach and restoring the boundary before the day of conflict arrives.
THE MEANING
Where safety is promised while the exposed places remain unrepaired, the house is left vulnerable when conflict comes. The verse names the failure plainly: no one enters the opening to restore the boundary, so the house cannot stand secure in the day of battle. Its words speak wherever reassurance takes the place of repair.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a house is protected simply because someone says it is; the open breach reveals its actual condition.
THE ROOT
הַפְּרָצוֹת
ha-peratsot
GROWS FROM
פרץ
p-r-ts
Break through, burst out; a breach made by breaking through.
“breaches” in this verse is ha-peratsot. The same root can name both a breach and the force of breaking outward. A gap is not merely empty space: it is an opening through which something can pass, leaving the house exposed.
ALSO GROWS
pāraṣ: To break through, burst out.
פָּרַץ
This verb names the force that turns a boundary into a breach.
ūpāraṣtā: You will spread abroad, break out (Genesis 28:14).
וּפָרַצְתָּ
The same root can describe outward expansion; an opening can lead to growth or exposure, depending on what it meets.
גָּדֵר
gāder
GROWS FROM
גדר
g-d-r
Enclose, fence in, wall around.
“built up the wall” in this verse is gāder. English separates “made up” from “hedge,” but Hebrew repeats one root in the verb and the object: they did not fence the fence. The phrase makes the missing protection tangible: no one performs the enclosing act that would close the exposed edge.
ALSO GROWS
gādar: To fence in, enclose.
גָּדַר
This is the verb behind “made up”; the action and the hedge share a root, so making the hedge means enclosing the opening.
gidrot tson: Sheepfolds, fenced pens (Numbers 32:16).
גִּדְרֹת צֹאן
The same word family describes an enclosure that protects vulnerable life, making the hedge a sheltering boundary.
THE PATTERN
A community can stand through conflict when its breaches are faced and its boundary restored.
And I sought among them for a man who would build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, so that I would not ruin it, but I found none.So we built the wall, and all the wall was tied together to half of it, for the people had heart to work.Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having worked through all things, to stand.THE THREAD
Why do you break through her hedges, and all who pass by the way pluck her?Psalm 80:12 uses the same Hebrew root, גדר (g-d-r), meaning to fence or enclose, for “hedges.” It shows what follows when that boundary is broken: those passing by can reach what lies inside.
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