What Does Ezekiel 21:18 Mean?
And again 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
The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying,THE KEY
The arriving “word” is not only language: Hebrew lets it name the matter itself.
THE MEANING
As you read, the LORD’s word arrives to you before it takes voice as a saying. The message is already present before it is spoken, more than information on a page.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that scripture is only inert text sealed in the past: here the word arrives and speaks in the present.
THE ROOT
דְבַר
devar
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
D-B-R
To speak or utter; the word, matter, or thing spoken.
The root ties speech to the matter at issue, so “the word” is more than verbal packaging. The verse places that word before its saying: what reaches Ezekiel already carries substance before it is voiced.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word; matter, thing, or affair.
דָּבָר
This noun keeps utterance and the matter it carries together, so what arrives is something placed before Ezekiel, not just sound or text.
dibber: To speak or declare.
דִּבֵּר
This verb shows the root in action; alongside the verse’s separate word for “saying,” it makes reception and voicing distinct.
THE PATTERN
A word received moves through a person into speech; the speaker voices what first reaches them.
Then the LORD stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, Look, I have set my words in your mouth.The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken; who will not prophesy?For we cannot keep from speaking what we have perceived and heard.THE THREAD
And he bent you low, and made you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had never perceived, nor had your fathers, so that he might make you perceive that humankind does not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes out from the mouth of the LORD does humankind live.The Hebrew דָּבָר (davar, “word” or “matter”) in Deuteronomy shares the root of Ezekiel’s דְבַר (devar, “word”). Deuteronomy shows this word proceeding from the LORD’s mouth as life-giving speech; Ezekiel shows it arriving to a hearer before it is voiced.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us