What Does Ezekiel 40:4 Mean?
And the man said to me, Son of man, see with your eyes and hear with your ears, and place your heart upon all that I will show you, for you have been brought here so that it may be told to you. Tell all that you see to the house of Israel.
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 man said unto me, Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee; for to the intent that I might shew them unto thee art thou brought hither: declare all that thou seest to the house of Israel.THE KEY
The Hebrew root ראה (ra’ah, see or perceive) links what is shown to what the witness sees, and then declares.
THE MEANING
A witness is formed through the whole person: the eyes behold, the ears hear, and the heart is set on what is shown. What is seen is entrusted for declaration to the house of Israel.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A vision is complete once it has been seen; this verse binds seeing to the act of declaring what is seen.
THE ROOT
מַרְאֶה
mar'eh
GROWS FROM
ראה
ra'ah
See, look, or perceive; in the causative stem, cause to see or show.
“see with your eyes” in this verse is mar'eh. The root ראה (ra’ah, see or perceive) appears in רְאֵה (re’eh, see or behold), in forms meaning “show you,” and in “what you see.” English uses different verbs, while Hebrew keeps one root moving from perception to causing perception; the verse carries that movement onward into declaration.
ALSO GROWS
re'eh: See or behold; the command to look.
רְאֵה
It opens the sequence by directing the witness’s attention to what is present.
mar'eh: Showing or causing to see.
מַרְאֶה
It describes what the speaker is doing: making something visible to the witness.
har'otkha: To show you.
הַרְאוֹתְךָ
It links the witness’s arrival to the purpose of being shown.
ro'eh: Seeing.
רֹאֶה
It returns to the witness’s own perception, the very thing he is charged to declare.
THE PATTERN
What is received through sight or hearing becomes testimony when it is carried outward.
And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon the tablets, so that the one who calls it out may run.Come and hear, all you who stand in awe of God, and I will recount what he has done for my living soul.For we cannot keep from speaking what we have perceived and heard.THE THREAD
And the LORD said to me, You have seen well, for I keep watch over my word to do it.The phrase “Thou hast well seen” uses ראה (ra’ah, see or perceive), the same root that links showing and seeing in Ezekiel. Jeremiah’s seeing is joined to a word being performed; Ezekiel’s seeing is joined to a word being declared.
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