What Does Ezekiel 29:13 Mean?
Yet, thus says the Lord GOD. At the end of forty years I will gather in the Egyptians from the peoples where they were scattered.
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
Yet thus saith the Lord GOD; At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered:THE KEY
In Hebrew, “at the end” and “I will gather” echo the same qoph-and-tsade sounds, placing the boundary of scattering beside the act of gathering.
THE MEANING
Here, you meet a word that names scattering without naming it permanent: the LORD says that after forty years he gathers the Egyptians from among the peoples where they are scattered. The verse gives their dispersion a boundary and makes gathering the action that follows.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that being scattered means being permanently lost meets a limit here: the LORD names an end to the dispersion and a gathering after it.
THE ROOT
אֲקַבֵּץ
aqabbets
GROWS FROM
ק־ב־ץ
q-b-ts
to gather, collect, or bring together
“gather in” in this verse is aqabbets. The phrase מִקֵּץ (miqqets, “at the end”) stands beside אֲקַבֵּץ (aqabbets, “I will gather”). They are distinct roots, but both carry the sounds qoph and tsade: the verse lets the end of the interval ring against the gathering that follows.
ALSO GROWS
qibbēts: gathered or assembled
קִבֵּץ
This verbal form shares the root of “I will gather,” showing the same action as a completed gathering.
qibbuts: a collection or gathering
קִבּוּץ
The noun makes the movement concrete: what was dispersed becomes a gathered group.
נָפֹצוּ
nafotsu
GROWS FROM
פ־ו־ץ
p-w-ts
to scatter or spread outward
“scattered” in this verse is nafotsu. The Hebrew verb depicts dispersal outward among many peoples. Its contrast with gathering gives the verse its movement: what has been spread among others is collected again.
ALSO GROWS
yafutsu: they will be scattered
יָפוּצוּ
The same root describes people spreading outward, making clear that scattering is a movement rather than a permanent identity.
hefits: to spread or disseminate
הֵפִיץ
This causative form shows the root’s wider sense of distributing something across many places.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitsrayim
GROWS FROM
צ־ר־ר
ṣ-r-r
to bind, press, or confine; narrowness
Mitsrayim carries the image of the two narrows, a constricted place. In this verse, the Egyptians are gathered from among the peoples where they have been scattered; the named action is the ending of dispersal.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: narrow, confined, or strait
צַר
This root sense puts constriction inside the name Mitsrayim.
metsar: a narrow place or strait
מֵצַר
The related word gives a concrete image of narrowness, echoing the constricted character carried by the place-name.
THE PATTERN
Scattering is a real condition, but it is not the final word: the dispersed are gathered from among the peoples.
Then the LORD your God will turn back your captivity, and have compassion upon you, and will turn back and gather you from all the nations where the LORD your God has scattered you.The LORD builds Jerusalem; he gathers the driven-out of Israel.And not for that nation only, but that he would also gather together into one the children of God who were scattered abroad.THE THREAD
"Therefore say, Thus says the Lord GOD. I will gather you from the peoples, and I will gather you in from the lands where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel."The same Hebrew root, קבץ (q-b-ts), appears in “I will gather,” alongside the same movement from scattered peoples to a gathered people. This verse makes the pattern especially clear: gathering answers dispersion, and the gathered ones are given a place.
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