What Does Ezekiel 35:1 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
Before the message is revealed, the word itself becomes an encounter.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s word reaches you at the threshold before its message unfolds. What comes is already present, and what it means is about to be spoken.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; as a noun, a word, matter, or thing.
Davar can name both speech and the matter being spoken about. The word that reaches you is not only sound; it carries substance.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, speech, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The same word can name what is spoken and what the speech concerns, joining message with substance.
dibber: Spoke or declared.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal form makes the word’s arrival an opening into speech: it comes, then begins saying.
וַיְהִי
wayehi
GROWS FROM
היה
To be, become, or happen.
“came” in this verse is wayehi. The Hebrew form carries the sense “and it happened” or “and it was” alongside the English sense of arrival. The word’s coming is also an event taking place.
ALSO GROWS
hayah: Was, became, or happened.
הָיָה
This form shows the event-shaped sense beneath the word’s arrival.
ehyeh: I am or I will be.
אֶהְיֶה
The same root appears in the divine name spoken to Moses, tying this moment of happening to the language of being.
THE PATTERN
The divine word is introduced as an encounter that arrives before its content is disclosed.
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.And the LORD appeared again in Shiloh, for the LORD uncovered himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the LORD.In the beginning was the word, and the word was turned toward God, and the word was God.THE THREAD
And God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. And he said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.The Hebrew behind “came” in this verse and “I AM” in Exodus 3:14 share the root היה (hayah), meaning to be, become, or happen. The arriving word is framed as an event, while the root’s other form speaks the name of being itself.
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