What Does Ezekiel 47:15 Mean?
And this shall be the border of the land toward the north edge, from the great sea, the way of Hethlon, as one comes to Zedad.
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 this shall be the border of the land toward the north side, from the great sea, the way of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad;THE KEY
The border is traced as a route between named landmarks, so the inheritance has an edge you can actually follow.
THE MEANING
The land has a defined northern edge, traced from the Great Sea along the road of Hethlon toward Zedad. The route and its endpoints give the inheritance a visible shape and a clear limit.
THE ROOT
גְּבוּל
gevul
GROWS FROM
גבל
g-b-l
To set a boundary, to bound.
The word for border can also mean territory: the boundary gives the land its defined shape. Here the inheritance is not an indistinct expanse; it has a limit that can be traced.
ALSO GROWS
gābal: To mark or establish a limit.
גָּבַל
The border noun grows from the act of bounding the land.
gevul: A boundary or the territory it defines.
גְּבוּל
The same word names the northern edge and the land shaped by that edge.
הַדֶּרֶךְ
haderekh
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
To tread, step, or travel.
English way can sound abstract, but derek carries the sense of a route underfoot. The border follows a road, connecting the land’s limit to a line of movement through the landscape.
ALSO GROWS
dārak: To place the foot on a path or move along it.
דָּרַךְ
The root holds the physical act that makes a route walkable.
déreḵ: A traveled way or course.
דֶּרֶךְ
This is the route named in the verse, marking how the boundary runs.
THE PATTERN
A gift of land becomes concrete through named limits that give it a shape and place.
On that day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.The cords fall to me in sweet places; indeed, my inheritance is beautiful.And he made from one blood every nation of humankind to settle upon all the face of the earth, marking out their fitted seasons and setting the boundary stones of their dwelling.THE THREAD
Behold, I am making a new thing; now it sprouts; will you not perceive it? I will even lay a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the parched land.Both verses use derek (דֶּרֶךְ), meaning way or route: here it traces the northern boundary, while Isaiah names a way through the wilderness. The same word can mark the edge of a place and open a passage through it.
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