What Does Ezekiel 22:23 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 word rendered “word” also means “matter”: what reaches you is not mere language but the matter the LORD is bringing into speech.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s word reaches you as an address: it comes “unto me,” and begins “saying.” You stand at the threshold where a matter is about to be spoken into view, before its particulars unfold.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a word from the LORD is only detached information to inspect; here it arrives as an address that opens a matter between speaker and hearer.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
dāḇār
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak, utter; the related noun can mean a word or a matter.
English separates a spoken word from the matter being discussed, but Hebrew davar can name both. Here the LORD’s utterance carries the matter itself: speech arrives already joined to what is about to be disclosed.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: Spoke, uttered.
דִּבֵּר
The word in this verse is not detached information; it is speech beginning to address a hearer.
devarim: Words or matters.
דְּבָרִים
This branch keeps together what English divides: the utterance and the matter it brings into view.
THE PATTERN
God’s word arrives as living address and carries action: it is spoken, goes forth, and becomes present.
And it came to pass at the end of seven days, that the word of the LORD came to me, saying,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.And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.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 (דָּבָר, “word, matter”), and says it goes forth and accomplishes. That opens this verse’s brief arrival as the beginning of an effective utterance: its message is still about to be spoken, yet its presence is already moving toward its work.
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