What Does Ezekiel 40:31 Mean?
Its porches faced the outer enclosure, and palm trees were upon its posts, and it had eight rising steps to climb.
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 arches thereof were toward the utter court; and palm trees were upon the posts thereof: and the going up to it had eight steps.THE KEY
The Hebrew repeats אֵילָיו (eylav, its side-pillars) for both “arches” and “posts,” and names its steps מַעֲלוֹת (ma’alot, ascents), making the whole gate a frame for rising.
THE MEANING
The entrance faces the outer court, carries palm forms on its supports, and rises through eight steps. The verse gives arrival a visible shape: a marked threshold, a living-tree image, and a measured ascent.
THE ROOT
מַעֲלוֹתֵהוּ מַעֲלוֹת
ma'alotehu ma'alot
GROWS FROM
עלה
To go up, rise, ascend.
“going up / steps” in this verse is ma'alotehu ma'alot. The verse names the steps מַעֲלוֹת (ma’alot, ascents), so the stairway is described through the movement it makes possible. The related עֹלָה (‘olah, burnt offering) is something that goes up, extending this root’s language of ascent beyond the architecture.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: To go up or ascend.
עָלָה
This verb is the root beneath the verse’s word for steps, bringing the action of rising into the architecture.
'olah: A burnt offering; literally, that which goes up.
עֹלָה
Its shared root shows how the verse’s measured ascent belongs to a wider Hebrew vocabulary of going upward.
אֵילָיו
eylav
GROWS FROM
איל
Ram or strong one; also an architectural pillar or side-post in this word’s attested range.
“arches / posts” in this verse is eylav. The same form, אֵילָיו (eylav, its side-pillars), appears twice where the KJV gives “arches” and “posts.” Hebrew repeats one structural word, letting the palm forms and rising steps sit within a unified gate frame.
ALSO GROWS
ayil: A ram; also a strong one or leader.
אַיִל
This is another attested sense of the word’s root, carrying the idea of a forceful or substantial presence.
ayil: A pillar or gate side-post.
אֵיל
This architectural sense is repeated in the verse, though English gives the two placements different names.
THE PATTERN
Approach to a holy threshold is repeatedly pictured as ascent into a higher presence.
Who climbs the mountain of the LORD? Who stands in his set-apart place?And many peoples shall go and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will aim us along his ways, and we will walk in his paths, for out of Zion the instruction shall go forth, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.And he said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, from now on you will see heaven standing open, and messengers of God going up and coming down upon the Son of Man.THE THREAD
Who climbs the mountain of the LORD? Who stands in his set-apart place?Ezekiel names the steps מַעֲלוֹת (ma’alot, ascents), from עָלָה (ʿalah, to go up); Psalm 24 asks with that same root who “shall ascend” into the LORD’s hill. The stairway becomes part of scripture’s own language for approaching the holy place.
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