What Does Ezekiel 35:13 Mean?
You have made your mouth large against me, and you have multiplied your words against me. I have heard them.
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
Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me, and have multiplied your words against me: I have heard them.THE KEY
The boast tries to make the speaker great against God, yet the verse ends with the words already heard.
THE MEANING
When you magnify yourself against God with your mouth, your words do not rise beyond God’s hearing. They are heard in full. The verse names the gap between a mouth making itself great and the One it cannot exclude.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a bold voice can make itself sovereign over God or remain unheard by him.
THE ROOT
וַתַּגְדִּילוּ
vattagdilu
GROWS FROM
גדל
To grow, become great, or make great.
“made your mouth large” in this verse is vattagdilu. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of magnifying: the mouth is trying to enlarge itself against the one it addresses. The closing words, “I have heard them,” answer that attempted elevation with the fact that the speech is fully received.
ALSO GROWS
gadol: Great, large.
גָּדוֹל
The boast grows out of the same word-family as greatness; the speaker’s words make a claim to importance.
migdal: Tower.
מִגְדָּל
The word for a tower shares the root for becoming great, an image of something raised high; here, the mouth tries to raise itself against God.
דִּבְרֵיכֶם
divrekhem
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; a word or matter.
The word for “words” belongs to a family that also names speech and matters. What is multiplied is not empty sound: these are claims set against God, and the verse says they are heard.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
The verb and the noun share a root, linking the spoken words here to the act of speaking.
davar: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
A “word” can also be a matter; the boast has substance as a claim, not merely volume.
שָׁמָעְתִּי
shama'ti
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear or listen.
“heard” in this verse is shama'ti. The final clause uses the Hebrew word for hearing and listening. The speech does not go unanswered because it went unnoticed: the verse closes by placing every word within God’s hearing.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear, listen.
שְׁמַע
The same root names hearing as attentive reception, giving weight to the verse’s final declaration.
shemuah: Report, news, or something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
A report belongs to the same hearing-family; what is spoken against God reaches him as something received.
THE PATTERN
Words that enlarge themselves against God remain heard and answerable.
For there is no word on my tongue; behold, LORD, you perceive all of it.But I say to you, every word without work that humankind speaks, they will give back an account of it in the day of judgment.Even so the tongue is a small limb, and it lifts its neck over great things. Look how great a forest a little fire kindles!THE THREAD
Let them be shamed and exposed together, those who rejoice at my harm; let them be clothed with shame and disgrace, those who swell against me.“Magnify themselves against me” uses the same גדל root as Ezekiel’s “ye have boasted against me.” The shared wording reveals the boast as an attempt at self-enlargement, while Ezekiel’s final words show that it is still heard.
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