What Does Ezekiel 48:20 Mean?
All the lifted portion shall be twenty-five thousand by twenty-five thousand. You shall lift the set-apart portion four-cornered, with the holding of the city.
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
All the oblation shall be five and twenty thousand by five and twenty thousand: ye shall offer the holy oblation foursquare, with the possession of the city.THE KEY
The “oblation” is a portion raised up, yet its exact square gathers the city’s holding into the same sacred order.
THE MEANING
The holy portion and the city’s possession occupy one measured landscape. What is set apart has a specific place within the shared life of a people.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The sacred must exist outside the shared world of dwellings and land; here, the city’s holding belongs within the same measured allotment.
THE ROOT
תְּרוּמָה
terumah
GROWS FROM
רום
rum
Rise, be high; raise up.
“lifted portion” in this verse is terumah. The noun תְּרוּמָה (terumah, raised contribution) and the verb תָּרִימוּ (tarimu, you shall raise) share the same root. The portion is raised up by exact measure, and its square includes the city’s holding.
ALSO GROWS
tarimu: You shall raise, lift up.
תָּרִימוּ
This verse’s verb translated “offer” echoes the root of “oblation.”
herim: He raised, lifted up.
הֵרִים
This verb form shows the same root’s concrete action: lifting a portion up.
אֲחֻזַּת
achuzzat
GROWS FROM
אחז
achaz
Grasp, hold, take hold.
The word for possession carries the sense of a holding: land is not merely an abstract title but a bounded place held within the allotment. Its presence in the same square brings the city’s holding into the passage’s measured order.
ALSO GROWS
achaz: To grasp, hold, take hold.
אָחַז
This verb supplies the physical sense beneath the city’s “possession.”
ne'echaz: Caught, held fast.
נֶאֱחַז
The same root can describe something held in place, echoing the bounded landholding named here.
קֹדֶשׁ
qodesh
GROWS FROM
קדש
qadash
Set apart, consecrate.
The set-apart portion has a definite measure and place within the same allotment as the city’s holding. Holiness here is spatially located, not left as an undefined idea.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart, holy.
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective names what is set apart in the measured portion.
miqdash: Sanctuary, set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
The same root can name a dedicated place, linking holiness with space that has a defined location.
THE PATTERN
Set-apart space has a concrete place within the shared life and dwelling of a people.
And let them make me a set-apart place, that I may pitch my tent among them.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.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 when you divide the land by lot for inheritance, you shall lift a lifted portion to the LORD, a set-apart portion of the land. Its length shall be five and twenty thousand reeds, and its breadth ten thousand. It shall be set apart in all its borders round about.Ezekiel 45:1 uses תְּרוּמָה (terumah, raised contribution) for the set-apart land, the same word family heard in “oblation” here. It gives that portion a 25,000-reed length; this verse places the holy portion and the city’s holding within a 25,000-by-25,000 square.
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