What Does Ezekiel 17:7 Mean?
There was also another great eagle with great wings and many feathers, and behold, this vine stretched her roots toward him, and sent her branches toward him, so that he might give her drink from the beds of her planting.
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
There was also another great eagle with great wings and many feathers: and, behold, this vine did bend her roots toward him, and shot forth her branches toward him, that he might water it by the furrows of her plantation.THE KEY
The Hebrew uses the same verb, shalach, for the roots that “bend” and the branches that “shot forth,” making both one reach toward a new source.
THE MEANING
Your hidden roots and visible branches both reach toward the second eagle, seeking water from its furrows. The vine’s nourishment now comes from beyond its own planting. What anchors it and what it extends outward turn the same way.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that the turn is only visible: the vine sends its roots toward him just as surely as its branches.
THE ROOT
וַתִּשְׁלַח
vatishlach
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
to send, send forth, release, or stretch out
“stretched her roots toward him” in this verse is vatishlach. The Hebrew verb shalach (שלח, send forth) appears for both the roots and the branches, though the KJV renders it as “bend” and “shot forth.” The same sending reaches from the vine’s hidden foundation to its visible growth, and both are directed toward the source it expects to water it.
ALSO GROWS
shilluaḥ: sending away, release
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch carries shalach’s sense of release, held together with sending forth in the root behind the vine’s reach.
mishloach: sending, dispatch
מִשְׁלוֹחַ
As the vine sends out both roots and branches, this branch makes the outward movement in shalach visible.
THE PATTERN
What is sent carries its source’s life or purpose into the place it reaches.
The waters made him great. The deep raised him on high, with her rivers running round his planting, and her channels sent out to all the trees of the field.You send out your breath, and they are created; you renew the face of the ground.Then Jesus said to them again, Wholeness be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.THE THREAD
The waters made him great. The deep raised him on high, with her rivers running round his planting, and her channels sent out to all the trees of the field.Ezekiel 31:4 uses the same root, shalach (שלח, send forth), for waters sent outward to trees. Here, the vine sends its roots and branches toward water; there, water is sent toward trees, one root shows both directions of dependence.
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