What Does Ezekiel 45:2 Mean?
Of this there shall be for the sanctuary five hundred in length, and five hundred in breadth, square all around. And fifty cubits all around for its pasturelands.
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
Of this there shall be for the sanctuary five hundred in length, with five hundred in breadth, square round about; and fifty cubits round about for the suburbs thereof.THE KEY
The sanctuary’s set-apart center includes the measured open space around it.
THE MEANING
The verse gives the sanctuary a defined shape: five hundred cubits square, with fifty cubits of open ground around it. Set-apartness has both a center and a margin; the space around the sacred place belongs to its design.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the assumption that open ground is leftover or wasted: here, the margin is part of the sanctuary’s measure.
THE ROOT
מִקְדָּשׁ
miqdash
GROWS FROM
קדשׁ
q-d-sh
Set apart, dedicate as sacred.
The sanctuary is named from the root of being set apart. The same root describes both the holy place and the act or quality of setting something apart, so the measured ground gives that distinction a visible shape.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart; sacred.
קָדוֹשׁ
The sanctuary is set apart as a distinct place, not merely given a sacred label.
qodesh: Set-apartness; sacred space.
קֹדֶשׁ
This related form names the quality the sanctuary embodies, which the measured boundary makes spatially visible.
מִגְרָשׁ
migrash
GROWS FROM
גרשׁ
g-r-sh
Drive out, send away, expel.
“pasturelands” in this verse is migrash. The KJV’s “suburbs” here means the open ground around a settlement. Its link with garash carries an echo of space cleared or kept open: the sanctuary’s set-apart center is framed by a margin released from ordinary building.
ALSO GROWS
garash: Drive out; expel.
גָּרַשׁ
The root’s sense of clearing or sending away resonates with ground kept open around the sanctuary.
megorash: Driven out; expelled.
מְגֹרָשׁ
This related form conveys the result of the root’s action, echoing the open margin around the sacred place.
THE PATTERN
Set-apart space becomes visible through measured ground and a distinct boundary.
Command the children of Israel to give the Levites cities to settle in from the inheritance of their holding, and you shall also give the Levites pasturelands for the cities round about them.He measured it by its four breaths, and it had a wall all around, five hundred reeds long, and five hundred wide, to make a parting between the set-apart place and the open ground.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 he said, Do not draw near here. Loosen the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is set-apart ground.“Holy” is קֹדֶשׁ (qodesh), from the same root as “sanctuary” in Ezekiel. Here, set-apartness is encountered as a place with a boundary; Ezekiel’s measured sanctuary gives that distinction an architectural form.
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