What Does Ezekiel 48:14 Mean?

And they shall not sell of it, nor trade it, nor hand over the firstfruits of the land, for it is set apart to the LORD.

Ezekiel 48:14 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And they shall not sell of it, neither exchange, nor alienate the firstfruits of the land: for it is holy unto the LORD.

THE KEY

The first portion is already set apart to the LORD, and no transaction can make it ordinary.

THE MEANING

The verse holds the land’s first portion as belonging to the LORD: selling, exchanging, or transferring it does not change its status. Its claim is present before any transaction and remains after every attempted transfer.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that something becomes ordinary once it is sold or transferred; this first portion remains holy unto the LORD.

THE ROOT

רֵאשִׁית

rēʾšît

GROWS FROM

ר־א־שׁ

resh

Head, top, or beginning.

⁨רֵאשִׁית⁩ (rēʾšît, first portion or beginning) grows from ⁨רֹאשׁ⁩ (rōʾš, head). “Firstfruits” therefore carries the sense of the land’s head or beginning, not merely an early slice of its yield.

ALSO GROWS

rōʾš: Head, top, chief.

רֹאשׁ

The land’s first portion is named with the same root as its “head,” giving firstness the sense of a leading or defining portion.

rîšôn: First, former.

רִאשׁוֹן

This branch shows the root’s connection between beginning and what stands first in an order.

קֹדֶשׁ

qōdeš

GROWS FROM

ק־ד־שׁ

qof

Set apart; marked as distinct.

“set apart” in this verse is qōdeš. ⁨קֹדֶשׁ⁩ (qōdeš, holiness or set-apartness) names a status that belongs to the LORD. The verse makes that status a boundary around the first portion: selling, exchange, or transfer does not dissolve it.

ALSO GROWS

qādôš: Set apart, holy.

קָדוֹשׁ

The adjective describes what has been marked as distinct, just as the first portion is declared holy unto the LORD.

miqdāš: Sanctuary, a set-apart place.

מִקְדָּשׁ

The sanctuary is a place bearing the same set-apart quality that the verse gives to the first portion.

THE PATTERN

The first portion is set apart to God and marks the larger yield that follows.

The first of the first-ripened of your ground you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in his mother's milk.

Exodus 23:19 · SDVThe first yield of the land is directed to the LORD as the portion that opens the harvest.

Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land that I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the first of your harvest to the priest.

Leviticus 23:10 · SDVThe first sheaf is set apart from the harvest and presented before the rest is gathered in.

By his own will he bore us forth through the word of truth, so that we might be a kind of firstfruit of his created things.

James 1:18 · SDVThe image of firstfruits extends to people who stand as the beginning of a larger creation.

THE THREAD

Give the LORD weight with your wealth, and with the first of all your yield.

Proverbs 3:9 · SDV

The phrase “firstfruits” here is ⁨רֵאשִׁית⁩ (rēʾšît, first portion or beginning), the same Hebrew word used in Ezekiel. Proverbs links that firstness to honoring the LORD; Ezekiel makes the belonging explicit by saying no sale, exchange, or transfer can undo it.

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