What Does Ezekiel 43:14 Mean?
From the foundation on the ground to the lower girdle, two forearms, and one in breadth. And from the lesser to the greater, four forearms, and one in breadth.
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 from the bottom upon the ground even to the lower settle shall be two cubits, and the breadth one cubit; and from the lesser settle even to the greater settle shall be four cubits, and the breadth one cubit.THE KEY
The altar’s rise is not left as an abstract ascent; it is built from the ground in measured tiers.
THE MEANING
The altar’s lower and upper ledges take shape from the ground upward, each with a stated height and breadth. The verse lets you see sacred space as embodied and measured: the ascent has distinct tiers and exact dimensions.
THE ROOT
רֹחַב
roḥav
GROWS FROM
רחב
To be wide or broad; to make spacious.
The word for the altar’s measured breadth grows from the same root that describes being brought into a wide, open place. Here that spaciousness has a precise shape and measure, joining the language of open space to the altar’s physical design.
ALSO GROWS
merḥav: A wide or spacious place.
מֶרְחָב
This is the word for the “large place” in Psalm 18:19, where deliverance takes the form of being brought into open space.
harḥivi: Enlarge; make wide.
הַרְחִיבִי
In Isaiah 54:2, the same root describes widening the place of a tent, using breadth as room made for what is coming.
THE PATTERN
Scripture’s language of breadth moves between measured built space and the experience of being brought into open room.
And behold, there was a wall outside the house all around, and in the man's hand a measuring reed of six forearms long, by the forearm and a handbreadth. He measured the breadth of the building, one reed, and its rising, one reed.He brings me out into a broad place; he pulls me loose, because he delights in me.May you be strong enough to grasp with all the set-apart ones what is the width, and length, and depth, and height.THE THREAD
He brings me out into a broad place; he pulls me loose, because he delights in me.The altar’s “breadth” (רֹחַב, roḥav) and the psalm’s “large place” (מֶרְחָב, merḥav) grow from the same root, רחב, meaning to be wide or make spacious. The measured width of this structure shares its root with the open space where deliverance unfolds.
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