What Does Ezekiel 41:19 Mean?
So that there was the face of a man toward the upright tree on the one side, and the face of a young lion toward the upright tree on the other side; it was made through all the house round about.
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
So that the face of a man was toward the palm tree on the one side, and the face of a young lion toward the palm tree on the other side: it was made through all the house round about.THE KEY
The human and young lion both face the palm, giving the house a repeated image of human and animal life oriented toward flourishing.
THE MEANING
You encounter a house whose carved human and young lion faces each turn toward a palm. Human life, animal strength, and the growing tree appear together in a pattern repeated all around the house.
THE ROOT
פְּנֵי
pənê
GROWS FROM
פנה
To turn, face, or direct oneself.
The repeated faces mark direction as well as appearance: both the human and the lion are oriented toward the palm. The face-word can also mean presence, so these carvings give the house a repeated orientation through its living forms.
ALSO GROWS
panim: Face; presence.
פָּנִים
This is the face-word in the verse, repeated for both figures.
panah: Turn; face; direct oneself.
פָּנָה
The verbal form makes the face’s directional quality audible beneath the carving.
אָדָם
adam
GROWS FROM
אדם
Human being; in the Adam–adamah wordplay, the ground-being.
“man” in this verse is adam. The human figure is adam, a ground-being, not an isolated category set apart from the living scene. Here that figure shares the house’s repeated design with the palm and the young lion.
ALSO GROWS
adamah: Ground; soil.
אֲדָמָה
The human word echoes the ground, connecting the carved man to the material world surrounding him.
adom: Red.
אָדֹם
The same consonants form the color-word, another earthy shade carried by the human word’s root.
תִּמֹּרָה
timorah
GROWS FROM
תמר
Date palm; palm tree.
“upright tree” in this verse is timorah. The palm is the shared point toward which the carved faces are directed, and the same tree-image elsewhere pictures flourishing. Repeated around the house, it becomes part of the structure’s living pattern.
ALSO GROWS
tamar: Date palm; palm tree.
תָּמָר
This is the basic tree-word behind the carved palm in the verse.
Tamar: A personal name meaning palm tree.
תָּמָר
The tree’s name is also carried as a person’s name, joining plant and human imagery.
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly places palms among the living forms of the sacred house and uses the palm to picture flourishing.
And he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubim and palm trees and opened blossoms, within and without.The aligned one blooms like the palm tree; he grows tall like the cedar in Lebanon.As for the likeness of their faces, all four had the face of a man and the face of a lion on the right side. All four had the face of an ox on the left side, and all four also had the face of an eagle.THE THREAD
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.Genesis 2:7 places אָדָם (adam, human) beside אֲדָמָה (adamah, ground or soil), making the ground-word within the human word visible. That connection places the carved human in Ezekiel among the palm and the young lion as part of a shared living order.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us