What Does Ezekiel 43:16 Mean?
And the hearth is twelve forearms long and twelve broad, square to its four corners.
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 altar shall be twelve cubits long, twelve broad, square in the four squares thereof.THE KEY
The Hebrew makes “square” and “four sides” echo the same root, as if the altar’s form is named by its fourfoldness.
THE MEANING
You meet the altar as a twelve-by-twelve square, its four-sided form made explicit. The place of offering holds one measure on every side, with no direction extending beyond the others.
THE ROOT
רָבוּעַ
ravua
GROWS FROM
רבע
r-b-ʿ
Four; a four-sided or square form.
“square to its four corners” in this verse is ravua. The Hebrew places רָבוּעַ (ravua, square) beside אַרְבַּעַת (arba’at, four) and רְבָעָיו (reva’av, its quarters or sides), repeating the consonants ר־ב־ע. English gives the measurements, while the Hebrew makes the square’s fourfold form audible in the wording itself.
ALSO GROWS
arba‘: Four
אַרְבַּע
The verse uses this form in “four sides,” echoing the root that names the altar’s square form.
reva’av: Its quarters or sides
רְבָעָיו
This form names the altar’s four parts and repeats the same root within the description of its shape.
THE PATTERN
Sacred architecture makes wholeness visible through forms whose measures are equal in every direction.
And you shall make an altar of shittim wood, five forearms long and five forearms wide. The altar shall be four-sided, and its height shall be three forearms.And the innermost room, in its forepart, was twenty forearms in length, and twenty forearms in breadth, and twenty forearms in its height; and he sheathed it with clean gold; and so he covered the altar which was of cedar.And the city lies four-cornered, and its length is as great as its width. And he measures the city with the reed, twelve thousand stades. Its length and width and height are equal.THE THREAD
And you shall make an altar of shittim wood, five forearms long and five forearms wide. The altar shall be four-sided, and its height shall be three forearms.Exodus uses the same Hebrew word רָבוּעַ (ravua, square) for the altar’s foursquare form. Across both passages, the altar’s fourfold shape is carried by the same Hebrew seed.
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