What Does Ezekiel 18:1 Mean?
The word of the LORD came to me again, 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
The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying,THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “word” can also mean “matter” or “thing,” so what reaches you is speech already moving into reality.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s word reaches you as something arriving, then opens into speech. Its coming “again” shows that a word can return with fresh force; one hearing does not exhaust what it can disclose.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a word from God is only information to consider: here, the word arrives and speaks as an unfolding reality.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
dāḇār
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
d-b-r
To speak; also a word, matter, or thing.
Hebrew dabar can name both speech and a matter or thing, joining what is spoken to what comes into being or attention. Here, the LORD’s word comes and speaks: it is not detached information, but an arriving reality.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֶּר
The spoken action belongs to the same root as the word that comes; the verse presents arrival and speech as one movement.
davar: A matter, thing, or affair.
דָּבָר
This meaning lets “word” carry the sense of a matter at hand, not merely a string of sounds.
THE PATTERN
A word that goes forth carries movement toward what it speaks.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.For the word of God is living and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching through even to the dividing of living soul and breath, of joints and marrow, and it separates the inward movements and thoughts of the heart.THE THREAD
So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew word, davar, for the word that goes out and accomplishes its purpose. It opens Ezekiel’s “came … saying” as a word already in motion.
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