What Does Ezekiel 41:9 Mean?
The thickness of the wall, which was for the rib chamber without, was five forearms; and what was left was the place of the rib chambers that were within the house.
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
The thickness of the wall, which was for the side chamber without, was five cubits: and that which was left was the place of the side chambers that were within.THE KEY
The space “left” by the wall is named as the resting place of the inner chambers, so the wall’s thickness makes room instead of merely taking it.
THE MEANING
The temple’s five-cubit wall leaves an interior margin for the chambers within. Boundary and usable interior belong together: what remains is still a place in the design.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The space left after a boundary is built is wasted or accidental. Here, the remaining space belongs to the inner chambers.
THE ROOT
מֻנָּח
munnaḥ
GROWS FROM
נוח
n-w-ḥ
to rest, settle, or be set down
The word rendered “left” is connected to נוח, whose word family includes resting, settling, and setting something down. The remainder reads as an assigned place where the inner chambers rest, rather than empty space outside the plan.
ALSO GROWS
nûaḥ: to rest or settle
נוּחַ
This basic form echoes the settled place the verse assigns to the chambers.
menûḥāh: resting place or repose
מְנוּחָה
The verse’s remaining space functions as a place, not as unused excess.
hēnîaḥ: to set down, place, or let rest
הֵנִיחַ
This causative form brings out the sense of space deliberately set aside for what rests within.
צַלְעוֹת
tsalʿōt
GROWS FROM
צלע
ṣ-l-ʿ
side, flank, or rib
“rib chambers” in this verse is tsalʿōt. The Hebrew word for these chambers belongs to the same word family as the word for a rib. In this architectural setting, the chambers occupy the temple’s side or flank, giving its interior a bodily edge that English “side chambers” can obscure.
ALSO GROWS
ṣēlāʿ: rib or side
צֵלָע
This singular form shows that the temple’s side-chambers share their word with a bodily side.
tsalʿōt: ribs, sides, or side chambers
צַלְעוֹת
The plural form names both the chambers here and ribs elsewhere, joining architecture and anatomy through one word.
THE PATTERN
A sacred dwelling takes shape through boundaries and ordered spaces set for indwelling.
And let them make me a set-apart place, that I may pitch my tent among them.And against the wall of the house he built side chambers round about, against the walls of the house round about, both of the temple and of the innermost room; and he made side chambers round about.In whom you also are built together into a place where God settles, through breath.THE THREAD
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from Adam, he built into a woman, and brought her to Adam.The Hebrew word translated “side chambers” belongs to the same word family as “rib” in Genesis. One root names both the temple’s flank and a bodily rib, giving the chambers a connection to the side that shelters an interior.
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