What Does Ezekiel 43:17 Mean?
And the girdle is fourteen forearms long and fourteen broad, square to its four corners. And the border around it is half of one, and its base a forearm around, and its steps face east.
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 settle shall be fourteen cubits long and fourteen broad in the four squares thereof; and the border about it shall be half a cubit; and the bottom thereof shall be a cubit about; and his stairs shall look toward the east.THE KEY
Its stairs are מַעֲלוֹת (maʿalot, ascents), from the same root as עֹלָה (ʿolah, the ascending offering): the altar’s approach and its offering are both a going up.
THE MEANING
The altar’s top, border, base, and stairs are measured, and its ascent faces east. Here, approach is part of the structure: the way up has a direction.
THE ROOT
מַעֲלֹתֵהוּ
maʿalōtēhū
GROWS FROM
עלה
To go up, rise, or ascend.
The Hebrew word for the altar’s stairs comes from the same root as עֹלָה (ʿolah, the ascending offering). The verse’s architecture and its ritual language share the idea of ascent: the approach itself is part of what goes up.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: Go up or rise.
עָלָה
This is the verb beneath the word for the altar’s stairs, making them literally an ascent.
ʿōlāh: A burnt offering; literally, that which goes up.
עֹלָה
This branch links the altar’s steps to the offering through one shared root.
רוּחֹתֶיהָ
ruḥōtehā
GROWS FROM
רוח
Breath or wind; the plural can also mean directions.
The Hebrew phrase is toward its four winds or directions, where the KJV says “in the four squares thereof.” רוּחַ (ruaḥ, breath or wind) is the same word beneath that directional language, so the altar’s geometry is also framed as orientation across all directions.
ALSO GROWS
ruaḥ: Breath or moving air.
רוּחַ
This is the singular word carried into the phrase describing the altar’s four directions.
ruḥot: Winds; by extension, directions.
רוּחוֹת
This plural makes the altar’s four-sided layout a description of orientation, not only shape.
THE PATTERN
Sacred space is made legible through measured boundaries and directional orientation.
And the width of the enclosure, on the front edge, eastward, shall be fifty forearms.Then he came to the gate that faces the sunrise, and climbed its rising steps, and measured the threshold of the gate, one reed wide, and the other threshold of the gate, one reed wide.From the rising, three gates, and from the north, three gates, and from the south, three gates, and from the setting, three gates.THE THREAD
If his drawing near from the herd is a rising offering, he shall bring near a whole male to the opening of the tent of appointed meeting, and he shall bring it near of his own pleasure before the face of the LORD.The altar’s מַעֲלוֹת (maʿalot, ascents) and the עֹלָה (ʿolah, ascending offering) share the root עלה, “to ascend.” The steps and the offering are two forms of the same upward movement.
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