What Does Ezekiel 3:13 Mean?
I heard also the sound of the wings of the living creatures touching one another, and the sound of the wheels facing them, and the sound of a great quaking.
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
I heard also the noise of the wings of the living creatures that touched one another, and the noise of the wheels over against them, and a noise of a great rushing.THE KEY
What sounds like three separate noises is one coordinated movement, rising from wings touching to wheels and a great shaking.
THE MEANING
You hear the creatures’ wings touching, the wheels beside them, and a sound of great shaking rising through the scene. Contact and motion gather into tumult, placing you inside the sound now.
THE ROOT
רַעַשׁ
ra'ash
GROWS FROM
רעש
r-ʿ-sh
To quake or shake; tumult, a tremor.
“quaking” in this verse is ra'ash. English “rushing” can suggest speed or flowing movement; רעש (ra’ash, shaking or tumult) gives the final sound a tremor-like force. The wings’ contact and the wheels’ sound gather into something you hear as upheaval.
ALSO GROWS
ra'ash: To quake or shake.
רָעַשׁ
This verbal form shows that the sound is connected to trembling movement, not only to speed.
ra'ash: A shaking, earthquake, or tumult.
רַעַשׁ
This noun names the force of the great sound that closes the verse.
מַשִּׁיקוֹת
mashiqot
GROWS FROM
נשק
n-sh-q
To kiss or make contact.
The word rendered “touched” comes from the same root that names a kiss, so the wings meet in contact rather than merely occupying nearby space. English keeps the action but loses that root-level echo.
ALSO GROWS
nashaq: To kiss; to touch.
נָשַׁק
This verb reveals the root shared with the wings’ contact in Ezekiel.
vayyishaq: And he kissed.
וַיִּשַּׁק
This form in Genesis 29:11 makes the root’s bodily sense explicit.
THE PATTERN
When divine movement fills a scene, scripture makes its presence audible through sounds that grow beyond ordinary scale.
And when they walked, I heard the sound of their wings, like the sound of many waters, like the voice of the Almighty, like the voice of one speaking, like the din of a camp. When they stood, they let their wings drop.The voice of the LORD is upon the waters. The God of weight thunders. The LORD is upon many waters.And suddenly a sound came from heaven, like the rush of a violent breath, and it filled the whole house where they were seated.THE THREAD
Faithful love and truth meet; alignment and wholeness kiss.The Hebrew behind “touched” is מַשִּׁיקוֹת (mashiqot, touching), from נשק (nashaq, to kiss or touch). Psalm 85 uses the same root for righteousness and peace kissing, revealing a shared language of contact and meeting.
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