What Does Ezekiel 25:1 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 again unto me, saying,THE KEY
The Hebrew presents the LORD’s word as something that happens to its hearer before its message unfolds.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you with an address arriving before its message is disclosed. The word is an encounter that opens in speech, placing you where a word reaches its hearer.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that one encounter exhausts what can be heard: the word comes again.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
dāḇār
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
d-b-r
To speak; an utterance or matter.
Davar can mean a spoken word and a matter or thing, holding utterance and what is spoken about together. Here, the LORD’s word arrives to Ezekiel and leads straight into saying, so speech is an encounter whose content follows.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
The same root links the word that arrives with the act of speaking that follows.
devarim: Words; matters or things.
דְּבָרִים
This branch preserves the word’s range from what is said to the matter being spoken of.
וַיְהִי
wayhi
GROWS FROM
ה־י־ה
h-y-h
To be, become, or happen.
“came” in this verse is wayhi. The verb wayhi can be heard as and it was or and it happened: the word is presented as an event reaching its hearer. The KJV’s again conveys return, while the Hebrew verb itself carries the sense of happening.
ALSO GROWS
yihyeh: He or it will be.
יִהְיֶה
This form keeps the root’s sense of being or coming to be, while wayhi casts the address as something that happens.
yehi: Let it be.
יְהִי
In Genesis 1:3 this is the jussive form in the creation text, voicing permission; that specific use does not define every form of the root.
THE PATTERN
God’s word is shown as an utterance that moves into realization or reveals what lies within.
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
For I am the LORD. I will speak, and the word I speak shall be done. It shall no more be drawn out. For in your days, O rebellious house, I will speak a word and do it, says the Lord GOD.The Hebrew root ד־ב־ר (d-b-r) joins the word (davar) and the act of speaking (dibber). Ezekiel 12:25 makes that link explicit: the word is what the LORD speaks, and it moves toward fulfillment.
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