What Does Ezekiel 41:12 Mean?
Also the building that faced the cut-off place at its side toward the west was seventy forearms broad, and the wall of the building was five forearms thick around, and its length was ninety 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
Now the building that was before the separate place at the end toward the west was seventy cubits broad; and the wall of the building was five cubits thick round about, and the length thereof ninety cubits.THE KEY
A place called “separate” is not a void: its own measured building gives the boundary shape.
THE MEANING
Even the space at the far edge is given width, a wall, and length; the verse makes its boundary exact. What is set apart remains a defined part of the measured whole.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What is set apart is only empty leftover space. Here, the separate place has its own measured structure.
THE ROOT
גִּזְרָה
gizrah
GROWS FROM
גזר
gazar
to cut off, divide
“cut-off place” in this verse is gizrah. English gives us a place, while the root carries the act of cutting or dividing. The word suggests a space made distinct by a boundary, and the verse gives that space its own dimensions.
ALSO GROWS
gazar: to cut, divide
גָּזַר
Psalm 136:13 uses this verb for dividing the Red Sea into parts, showing the dividing action contained in “separate place.”
gzerah: decree
גְּזֵרָה
This cognate carries the idea of a fixed limit into a decision made by decree; here the limit takes architectural form.
אָרְכּוֹ
ve’orko
GROWS FROM
ארך
ʾ-r-k
to be long, extend
The Hebrew word for length belongs to a word family that describes extension in space and in time. One root holds the building’s measured length alongside long days and the “long” restraint expressed as being slow to flare.
ALSO GROWS
erekh appayim: slow to flare; literally, “long of nostrils”
אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם
The same root extends the idea of length from physical space into the time before anger flares.
orekh yamim: length of days; long duration
אֹרֶךְ יָמִים
Here the root names extension through time, just as it names the building’s extension through space.
THE PATTERN
A boundary gives distinct parts their place within a larger whole.
He measured it by its four breaths, and it had a wall all around, five hundred reeds long, and five hundred wide, to make a parting between the set-apart place and the open ground.And you shall hang up the veil under the taches, so that you may bring in there, within the veil, the ark of the testimony; and the veil shall divide for you between the set-apart place and the most set-apart place.But now God has set the limbs, each one of them, in the body, as he willed.THE THREAD
To him who cuts the Sea of Reeds into parts, for his faithful love reaches to the ages.The Hebrew verb translated “divided” shares the root גזר with גִּזְרָה, “separate place.” English makes one an action and the other a location; the root holds both as division made visible.
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