What Does Ezekiel 22:17 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
And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,THE KEY
The Hebrew root holds “word” and “saying” together: what arrives is already speech in motion.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s word reaches the reader before its message unfolds; what arrives is not mute information but speech that addresses. The verse places hearing at the threshold: the word comes, then says.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that revelation is only a static sentence: here the word is an arrival that speaks.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר
dĕvar
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
D-B-R
To speak or utter; the related noun also means a word, matter, or thing.
The verse follows “the word came” with “saying,” and Hebrew links both through the root ד־ב־ר. The word is not merely a label for information: it arrives as speech.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
It shows that the arriving “word” can hold both an utterance and the matter being spoken.
dibbēr: Spoke or speaks.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal branch shares the root with “word,” joining what arrives to the act of saying.
THE PATTERN
The divine word reaches a hearer as speech that comes and addresses.
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,God, who in many portions and in many ways spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets.While Peter was still speaking these words, the Set-Apart Breath fell upon all who heard the word.THE THREAD
The word of the LORD came, indeed came, to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar, and the hand of the LORD was there upon him.The same Hebrew noun, דָּבָר (dābār, word or matter), appears in the same phrase: “the word of the LORD came.” That repeated wording lets you hear the word as both a message and an arrival that leads into speech.
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