What Does Ezekiel 17:11 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
Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,THE KEY
In Hebrew, the word that reaches Ezekiel can also mean a matter or thing: the message arrives as something taking shape, not mere information.
THE MEANING
The verse places you at the instant an address arrives: the LORD’s word meets you in the present. Its content is about to unfold, and the moment of arrival is already part of the message.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The word of the LORD is only distant information that cannot address you now.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר
dəvar
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; as a noun, a word, matter, or thing.
The Hebrew noun דָּבָר can name both speech and a matter or thing. English makes the word sound like a message being delivered; the Hebrew also lets you hear a matter arriving with it.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: spoke, declared
דִּבֵּר
The spoken word shares the same root as the matter that reaches Ezekiel: the message is an address, not detached information.
devarim: words, matters
דְּבָרִים
This plural keeps speech and matters together, opening the possibility that what is said bears upon what is happening.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s word arrives to a hearer before its content unfolds, making revelation an encounter rather than detached information.
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield, and your very great wages.Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,While Annas and Caiaphas were the chief priests, the word of God came upon John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.Psalm 33:6 uses the same Hebrew word, דָּבָר (dābār), for the LORD’s word. There it is active in the making of the heavens, revealing a word that does more than inform: it gives shape to what comes to be.
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