What Does Ezekiel 47:10 Mean?
And fishers shall stand upon it, from En-gedi even unto En-eglaim. They shall be a place to spread nets. Their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, very many.
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 it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from En-gedi even unto En-eglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many.THE KEY
The restored sea teems with life across its shores, and that abundance preserves every kind.
THE MEANING
Fishers stand along the shore, nets can be spread, and the catch is abundant. The abundance keeps its variety: each kind thrives without being folded into sameness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that restoration requires sameness: the fish thrive by their kinds, and abundance leaves their difference intact.
THE ROOT
מִינָהּ
minah
GROWS FROM
מין
kind, type, or species
The word for kinds echoes the creation language of life appearing according to its kind. Here, that ordering returns in a sea teeming with fish: restored abundance does not erase distinction.
ALSO GROWS
min: kind or species
מִין
This is the word-family behind the kinds of fish in the verse.
leminēhû: according to its kind
לְמִינֵהוּ
The same word-family appears in Genesis’s description of living creatures, linking this abundance with creation’s ordered variety.
דַּוָּגִים
dayyagim
GROWS FROM
דוג
fish or fish for
Fishers and fish belong to the same Hebrew word-family. The verse holds catch and livelihood together: the sea’s returning life also makes the shore a place where people can work.
ALSO GROWS
dag: fish
דָּג
It names the life filling the sea that the fishers depend on.
dayyag: fisher
דַּיָּג
It names the person whose work becomes possible where fish are plentiful.
THE PATTERN
Where life reaches, abundance returns across the whole field while each kind remains distinct.
And God blessed them, saying, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply upon the earth."And every living soul that swarms, wherever the rivers come, shall live. And there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come there. They shall be healed, and everything shall live wherever the river comes.And he said to them, "Throw the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find." So they threw it, and no longer had the strength to haul it because of the fullness of the fish.THE THREAD
And God created the great sea serpents, and every living soul that creeps, which the waters swarmed with after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good.The phrase after their kind uses the same Hebrew word-family מין (min, kind) that appears here as kinds. In Genesis, abundance belongs to distinct forms of life; here, that pattern returns in a sea filled with fish.
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