What Does Ezekiel 48:23 Mean?
As for the rest of the tribes, from the east side to the sea, Benjamin shall have a share.
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
As for the rest of the tribes, from the east side unto the west side, Benjamin shall have a portion.THE KEY
The “rest” are not outside the inheritance: the Hebrew word can also carry the sense of surplus, and Benjamin receives a defined span across the land.
THE MEANING
You are shown a whole in which what remains still has a definite place: Benjamin’s share stretches from east to west. Its boundaries make that share concrete, not abstract.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being among the “rest” does not mean being left without a place; Benjamin receives a defined allotment.
THE ROOT
יֶתֶר
yether
GROWS FROM
יתר
y-t-r
To remain over, be left, or exceed.
English “rest” can sound like an undifferentiated remainder, but this root holds both what is left and what exceeds. Here, Benjamin’s place makes that remaining share visible as a defined span across the land.
ALSO GROWS
yitron: Surplus, advantage, or profit.
יִתְרוֹן
The root’s sense of what remains over appears in the word translated “profit” in Ecclesiastes 1:3.
yoter: More, beyond, or remaining.
יוֹתֵר
This form keeps the sense of being left over or extending beyond audible in the same root family.
בִּנְיָמִן
Binyamin
GROWS FROM
ימן
y-m-n
Right hand or right side.
The tribal name joins ben, “son,” to yamin, “right hand.” English presents Benjamin as a label, while the Hebrew name carries an image of the right hand into the verse that assigns the tribe its place.
ALSO GROWS
yamin: Right hand or right side.
יָמִין
This is the second element of Binyamin, “son of the right hand.”
yemini: Right-hand, right-sided; also a Benjaminite.
יְמִינִי
This related form preserves the connection between the tribe’s name and the right-hand image.
THE PATTERN
A shared inheritance takes shape as a distinct portion within a larger whole.
"Unto these the land shall be divided for an inheritance according to the number of names.The LORD is the portion of my share and of my cup; you hold fast my lot.Giving thanks to the Father, who has made us sufficient to have a share in the inheritance of the set-apart ones in the light.THE THREAD
What remains to a man from all the toil that he toils under the sun?The Hebrew word translated “profit,” yitron, comes from the same root as “rest” here: what remains over, surplus, or gain. Ezekiel gives the remaining tribes a concrete share; Ecclesiastes asks what remains from human labor.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us