What Does Ezekiel 40:11 Mean?
And he measured the breadth of the opening of the gate, ten forearms, and the length of the gate, thirteen forearms.
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
And he measured the breadth of the entry of the gate, ten cubits; and the length of the gate, thirteen cubits.THE KEY
The gate’s entry is a פֶּתַח (petaḥ, opening), so its measurements describe the space through which passage happens.
THE MEANING
You meet access as formed space: an opening with breadth and length that you can picture. Even what is set apart meets you in dimensions, not only as an idea.
THE ROOT
פֶּתַח
petaḥ
GROWS FROM
פתח
p-t-ḥ
To open.
The Hebrew word for entry names an opening, from the same root as the act of opening. Its measured breadth and length describe the actual aperture through which passage occurs, not only the gate as an object.
ALSO GROWS
pātaḥ: To open.
פָּתַח
The verb shares the seed of the entry: a passage is an opening made available.
petaḥ: Opening, entrance.
פֶּתַח
This is the word for the gate’s entry, the space whose dimensions are being given.
pātūaḥ: Open, opened.
פָּתוּחַ
This branch describes the state that makes passage possible through an opening.
רֹחַב
rōḥav
GROWS FROM
רחב
r-ḥ-b
To be wide or become broad; to make spacious.
The Hebrew word for breadth shares its root with widening and making room. The verse gives that spaciousness an actual span: the gate’s opening has room that can be measured.
ALSO GROWS
rāḥav: To become wide or spread out.
רָחַב
The verb carries the widening that the gate’s breadth holds as a measured space.
hirḥiv: To make broad, enlarge.
הִרְחִיב
This branch makes explicit the root’s movement toward greater room.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures passage as a real opening: it can be built into a structure, opened as an invitation, or embodied as a door.
Make a window for the ark, and finish it a forearm down from the top. Place the opening of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third floors.Open to me the gates of alignment; I enter them, and I extend my hands to the LORD.I am the door. Through me, if anyone enters, he shall be delivered, and shall go in and out, and shall find pasture.THE THREAD
Open to me the gates of alignment; I enter them, and I extend my hands to the LORD.Ezekiel calls the gate’s entry פֶּתַח (petaḥ, opening); Psalm 118’s “Open” is פִּתְחוּ (pitḥu), from the same root, פתח (p-t-ḥ, open). The measured aperture becomes an opening one can enter, turning architectural detail into an invitation.
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