What Does Ezekiel 13:6 Mean?
They have seen emptiness and lying divination, saying, The LORD says; and the LORD has not sent them; and they have made others wait, that they might make the word stand.
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
They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The LORD saith: and the LORD hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word.THE KEY
The LORD’s name in a message does not make it a message the LORD sent.
THE MEANING
A claim can wear the LORD’s authority while coming from a speaker the LORD has not sent. Such speech can give people hope that a word will stand, but that hope cannot establish it. The verse turns attention from the speaker’s confidence to the message’s true source and whether its word holds.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A confident spiritual claim is not proof that the LORD sent it, and reassurance that it will come true is not the same as the word standing.
THE ROOT
שְׁלָחָם
shelacham
GROWS FROM
שלח
To send forth, send away, or release.
“sent them” in this verse is shelacham. The verse’s central absence is the sending itself: the speakers claim the LORD’s authority, but the root-level act that would ground their message is missing. This root can also carry the sense of release, so the claim lacks the sending forth that would give it a true source.
ALSO GROWS
shaluach: Sent; one who is sent.
שָׁלוּחַ
A genuine message has a sender behind it; the speakers’ claim does not supply one.
shilluach: Sending away or release.
שִׁלּוּחַ
The root’s sense of release brings out the difference between a message actually sent and one merely presented as divine.
Shiloach: Sent; the name of the waters of Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
The name preserves the sending sense in a place name, showing how the root can carry the idea of something sent forth.
לְקַיֵּם
leqayyem
GROWS FROM
קום
To rise, stand, or remain; in this form, to establish or cause to stand.
“make ... stand” in this verse is leqayyem. The hearers are made to hope that a word will be made to stand. The language exposes a gap between hopeful prediction and something that can actually stand; confidence cannot provide its footing.
ALSO GROWS
qam: He stood or arose.
קָם
The image of standing gives the verse’s “confirm” a concrete sense: a word must hold its ground.
heqim: He raised, set up, or established.
הֵקִים
This causative form echoes the speakers’ promise to establish the word, a promise the verse places in question.
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak or utter; דָּבָר can mean a spoken word, matter, or thing.
Davar can name both what is spoken and the matter at hand. The verse presses beyond whether a sentence sounds divine: calling a claim the LORD’s word does not make its matter true or cause it to stand.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֶּר
The spoken claim and the claim of divine sending are distinct; speech alone does not prove its source.
devarim: Words or matters.
דְּבָרִים
The word can refer to the matter itself, bringing the focus onto whether the promised thing holds.
THE PATTERN
A divine claim is exposed by its source and by whether its word comes to stand.
I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.When the prophet speaks in the nature of the LORD, if the word does not come to be, nor arrive, it is the word the LORD has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it in a boiling over. You shall not cower from him.Beloved, do not lean your weight on every breath, but test the breaths, whether they come out of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.THE THREAD
He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.Both verses join sending and word, but Ezekiel exposes people claiming the LORD sent them while the psalm describes the LORD truly sending his word. The shared roots make the contrast clear: the claim of a sending cannot create the sending that brings healing and deliverance.
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