What Does Ezekiel 28:20 Mean?
And 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
Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “word” can also mean a matter or thing, so what arrives as speech is already an event coming into view.
THE MEANING
You stand at the moment before the address unfolds: the word is present, and its message is about to open. Hebrew frames its arrival as something that happens, while davar can name both speech and the matter being spoken. The verse holds you in the charged interval before the words are revealed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A word is only a label laid over reality: davar can mean both the utterance and the matter itself.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר
devar
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
d-b-r
Speak, utter; the noun davar also means a word, matter, or thing.
The Hebrew noun holds speech and matter together in one word-family. What English presents as a message can also be the matter itself, something that enters the scene rather than merely describing it.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: he spoke
דִּבֵּר
The verb and the noun share the same root: the word is bound to the act of speaking.
devarim: words, matters
דְּבָרִים
The plural keeps both senses, spoken words and matters, together, widening what “the word” can hold here.
וַיְהִי
vayehi
GROWS FROM
ה־י־ה
h-y-h
Be, become, happen.
“came” in this verse is vayehi. The Hebrew phrase begins with vayehi, a form of hayah: “and it happened” or “and it was.” The arrival is framed as an event taking place, giving the word’s coming the force of something entering the present.
ALSO GROWS
hayah: to be, become, happen
הָיָה
This is the root form behind vayehi, showing the event-language beneath “came.”
yihyeh: he or it will be
יִהְיֶה
This form carries the same root into what is coming to be, echoing the verse’s sense of an event unfolding.
THE PATTERN
A word from God arrives as an event that opens the next utterance.
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield, and your very great wages.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.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.Here, “I will speak” is אֲדַבֵּר (adabber, “I will speak”), and “the word” is דָּבָר (davar, “word, matter”): both grow from ד־ב־ר (d-b-r, “speak”). The verse shows the movement implied here: what arrives as speech is bound to what comes to pass.
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