What Does Ezekiel 43:6 Mean?
And I heard one speaking to me out of the house, and a man stood beside me.
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 I heard him speaking unto me out of the house; and the man stood by me.THE KEY
The dwelling is not silent architecture: a word comes from within it while a man stands at your side.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you with a voice coming from within the house and a man standing beside you. Nearness has more than one form here: what addresses you comes from within, while what stands with you is at your side.
THE ROOT
מִדַּבֵּר
midabber
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; the same root also names a word or matter.
The speech you hear comes from the same root that names a davar, a word or matter. Hebrew keeps utterance and what is uttered in one family, so the voice carries substance, not sound alone.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: Spoke, uttered
דִּבֵּר
It names the act of speaking heard from within the house.
davar: Word, matter, thing
דָּבָר
It links speech with the matter or thing conveyed by that speech.
וָאֶשְׁמַע
va'eshma
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear, listen, heed, or respond.
“heard” in this verse is va'eshma. This root can hold hearing and response together, so the voice is received as address, not merely as sound. The verse begins with receptivity: the word reaches the hearer before any response is stated.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear and respond
שְׁמַע
It shows the fuller movement contained in hearing: receiving what is said and answering it.
shemuah: Report, tidings
שְׁמוּעָה
It names news that has been heard and carried onward, connecting hearing with what a voice communicates.
THE PATTERN
A voice from the sacred dwelling reaches people and makes presence near.
And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with him, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the covering that was upon the ark of the witness, from between the two cherubim, and he spoke to him.And I hear a great voice from the throne, saying, Look, the tent of God is with humankind, and he will pitch his tent among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.THE THREAD
And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak, for your servant hears and responds.The roots for “speak” (דבר, d-b-r) and “hear” (שמע, sh-m-ʿ) meet here: Samuel asks the voice to speak because he is hearing. Ezekiel holds those two actions together too, with the speech coming from within the house and a man standing beside the hearer.
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