What Does Ezekiel 40:20 Mean?
And the gate of the outer enclosure that faces the hidden north, he measured its length and its breadth.
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 the gate of the outward court that looked toward the north, he measured the length thereof, and the breadth thereof.THE KEY
The gate’s breadth shares a root with the Hebrew word for an open, spacious place: even a measured boundary can hold room.
THE MEANING
The verse gives the north-facing gate of the outer court a measurable form: it has both length and breadth. The Hebrew word for breadth belongs to a word family that also names spaciousness, so the entrance’s design holds openness and defined dimensions together.
THE ROOT
וְרָחְבּוֹ
ve-roḥbo
GROWS FROM
רחב
r-ḥ-b
To be wide; to become spacious.
English gives you a dimension; the Hebrew root also carries the sense of wideness and spaciousness. The same root appears in a word for an open, spacious place, so the gate’s breadth echoes more than a measurement: it also evokes room.
ALSO GROWS
merḥav: A wide or open space.
מֶרְחָב
Psalm 18:19 uses this word for the “large place” into which the speaker is brought, revealing the same root’s sense of room and openness.
reḥov: An open public space or street.
רְחֹב
This branch carries wideness into a shared, open place, echoing the breadth named in the gate’s dimensions.
THE PATTERN
Sacred space is given defined dimensions, with breadth named alongside length.
And the width of the enclosure, on the front edge, eastward, shall be fifty forearms.And the house that king Solomon built for the LORD, its length was sixty forearms, and its breadth twenty, and its height thirty forearms.And the city lies four-cornered, and its length is as great as its width. And he measures the city with the reed, twelve thousand stades. Its length and width and height are equal.THE THREAD
He brings me out into a broad place; he pulls me loose, because he delights in me.The Hebrew word for “breadth” in Ezekiel comes from רחב (r-ḥ-b), the same root found in מֶרְחָב (merḥav), “a spacious place,” in Psalm 18:19. The shared root lets the gate’s measured breadth echo the language of openness and room.
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