What Does Ezekiel 28:11 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
Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,THE KEY
The LORD’s speech takes place as an event in the hearer’s present.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s speech meets you as an event, before its content opens. The verse holds you at the threshold where utterance itself is already an encounter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that the LORD’s word is only distant information: here it arrives as something happening to a hearer.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר
dĕvar from dāḇār
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
To speak or utter; as a noun, a word or matter.
Davar can mean both “word” and “matter,” giving speech substance and consequence. The LORD’s word is presented as something spoken that bears upon what is happening.
ALSO GROWS
dāḇār: Word, matter, affair, or thing
דָּבָר
This branch shows that the word can name a matter itself, not only a string of language.
dibber: Spoke, uttered
דִּבֵּר
The verbal form reveals the speaking act within the word: this is speech in motion.
וַיְהִי
wayehi
GROWS FROM
ה־י־ה
To be, become, happen, or come to pass.
“came” in this verse is wayehi. The Hebrew opens with wayehi, “and it happened” or “and it was.” The word of the LORD enters the verse as an occurrence in the hearer’s present.
ALSO GROWS
ehyeh: I will be
אֶהְיֶה
This form from the same root carries the sense of being or becoming, linking the word’s arrival to an event taking place.
yehi: Let it be; let it come to pass
יְהִי
This form shows the root’s connection to an event coming into being.
לֵאמֹר
le’mor
GROWS FROM
א־מ־ר
To say, speak, or declare.
“saying” in this verse is le’mor. The verse pairs davar, a word or matter, with le’mor, “to say.” Together they hold the utterance as both something with substance and something voiced.
ALSO GROWS
amar: Say or speak
אָמַר
This verb makes explicit that the word is voiced speech.
imrah: Utterance or saying
אִמְרָה
This noun shares the root and echoes the verse’s movement from the arriving word to its spoken content.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s word arrives as a living utterance that moves from speech into effect.
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,While Annas and Caiaphas were the chief priests, the word of God came upon John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.Both verses use davar, “word.” Psalm 33:6 places that word beside ruach, breath, showing the utterance that arrives to a hearer here as the same word-breath through which the heavens are made.
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