What Does Ezekiel 48:25 Mean?
And by the border of Simeon, from the east side to the sea, Issachar 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
And by the border of Simeon, from the east side unto the west side, Issachar a portion.THE KEY
Simeon’s name carries the root of hearing into the land map: Issachar’s share is located by its relation to him.
THE MEANING
Issachar’s allotted share touches Simeon’s border and stretches from east to west. Simeon’s name echoes hearing, while Issachar’s echoes wages or recompense. The verse presents belonging as a distinct place within a larger arrangement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief that a distinct place must stand alone gives way to a share defined in relation to a neighbor.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְעוֹן
Shimʿon
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed
Simeon’s name is formed from שמע, the root of hearing and heeding. Here that hearing-name marks a boundary, as Issachar’s share is placed beside Simeon.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: Hear, listen, heed
שָׁמַע
This is the root verb carried within Simeon’s name.
shemuʿah: Report, tidings; something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
The root reaches from the act of hearing to what is received and heard.
יִשָּׂשכָר
Yissakhar
GROWS FROM
שכר
Wage, hire, recompense
Issachar’s name echoes שכר, the language of wages and recompense. In this verse, that name is attached to a defined share of land.
ALSO GROWS
sākār: Wages, recompense
שָׂכָר
This noun gives the name Issachar its association with reward or hire.
sākīr: Hired worker
שָׂכִיר
The same root describes the person who receives wages for work.
קֵדְמָה
qedmah
GROWS FROM
קדם
Front, what is before; by orientation, east
“east side” in this verse is qedmah. The eastward side is named with קדם, a word that also carries the sense of what is in front or comes before. The verse’s boundary runs from this eastern side to the western side, giving the allotment a full span.
ALSO GROWS
qedem: Front, east, former time
קֶדֶם
The word holds spatial direction and what lies before within the same root.
qadim: East wind
קָדִים
The same root names the wind associated with the eastern direction.
hiqdīm: Precede, come before
הִקְדִּים
This verb extends the root’s sense of what comes in front or beforehand.
THE PATTERN
A shared whole takes shape through distinct shares whose positions and boundaries relate to one another.
Out of the portion of the children of Judah was the inheritance of the children of Simeon; for the part of the children of Judah was too much for them; therefore the children of Simeon had their inheritance within the inheritance of them.The cords fall to me in sweet places; indeed, my inheritance is beautiful.But now God has set the limbs, each one of them, in the body, as he willed.THE THREAD
And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she said, Because the LORD has heard that I was hated, he has therefore given me this son also. And she called his name Simeon, Heard.Genesis 29:33 links Simeon’s name to the LORD having heard, from the same root שמע. In Ezekiel, that hearing-root appears as a name set into the land’s boundaries.
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