What Does Ezekiel 15:3 Mean?

Will wood be taken from it to do any work? Or will they take a peg from it to hang any vessel on it?

Ezekiel 15:3 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon?

THE KEY

The verse measures usefulness by what a thing can yield and hold, not by how useful its material appears.

THE MEANING

The question meets you wherever usefulness is being measured by appearance: what can be taken from the vine and made useful, and what can even hold a vessel? Its wood cannot perform either task. The verse holds the difference between looking usable and having the capacity to serve or support.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that something keeps its usefulness simply because it resembles usable material.

THE ROOT

יִקַּח

yiqqaḥ

GROWS FROM

לקח

to take, receive, or acquire

“they take” in this verse is yiqqaḥ. Both clauses repeat the root ⁨לקח⁩: first asking what can be taken from the vine for work, then what can be taken as a peg. Its branch ⁨לֶקַח⁩ also means instruction or teaching, extending the idea of taking into receiving; here, the repeated question tests what the vine can actually yield.

ALSO GROWS

lāqaḥ: to take or receive

לָקַח

This is the verb repeated in both questions, linking the taking of wood with the taking of a peg.

leqaḥ: instruction or teaching

לֶקַח

This branch extends taking into receiving; the verse asks whether the vine yields anything that can be received and put to use.

לִתְלוֹת

litlot

GROWS FROM

תלה

to hang or suspend

“hang” in this verse is litlot. The vessel is not merely placed on the wood; it hangs from it, with its weight resting on the support. The root makes the peg’s job concrete: the vine’s wood must be able to carry what is entrusted to it.

ALSO GROWS

talui: suspended; dependent

תָּלוּי

A suspended thing depends on what holds it, echoing the support tested by the verse.

teliya: hanging or suspension

תְּלִיָּה

This noun preserves the action of being hung, bringing the vessel’s dependence on its peg into focus.

THE PATTERN

Living capacity is known by what a thing can produce or sustain, not merely by its outward form.

And he becomes like a tree planted by the channels of the waters, that gives its fruit in its season; its leaf does not wither; whatever he does, he breaks through.

Psalm 1:3 · SDVThe tree’s life appears in the fruit it yields and the resilience it sustains.

So every good tree makes good fruit, but the rotten tree makes evil fruit.

Matthew 7:17 · SDVThe tree is recognized by what it produces, not by appearance alone.

I am the vine, and you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:5 · SDVThe branch’s capacity to bear fruit depends on its living connection to the vine.

THE THREAD

And the LORD God took Adam and set him down in the garden of Eden, to serve it and to guard it.

Genesis 2:15 · SDV

Genesis uses the same root, ⁨לקח⁩, when God takes the human into Eden, delight, and places him where tending and guarding are possible. Ezekiel uses that root to ask whether the vine can yield anything fit for work or support; its wood cannot.

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