What Does Ezekiel 48:9 Mean?
The lifted portion which you shall lift to the LORD shall be twenty-five thousand in length, and ten thousand in width.
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
The oblation that ye shall offer unto the LORD shall be of five and twenty thousand in length, and of ten thousand in breadth.THE KEY
The word translated “oblation” carries the sense of something lifted up, and the verse gives that offering an exact place in the land.
THE MEANING
What is set apart for the LORD has a precise measure and place. The verse holds dedication and space together: what is lifted toward God occupies a real, bounded portion within the whole.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that what is sacred must be vague or without boundaries: here its measure is exact.
THE ROOT
תְּרוּמָה
terumah
GROWS FROM
רום
To rise, be high, or lift up.
“lifted portion” in this verse is terumah. The noun translated “oblation” and the verb translated “offer” both grow from the root of lifting. The offering is something raised or set apart for the LORD, then given a definite place by its measurements.
ALSO GROWS
tarimu: You shall lift up or set apart.
תָּרִימוּ
This is the verb translated “offer” in the verse; its shared root reveals the lifting within the act of offering.
ram: High or exalted.
רָם
This branch carries the sense of being raised, echoing the offering’s being set apart for the LORD.
רֹחַב
rochav
GROWS FROM
רחב
To be wide or spacious; to make room.
The word for breadth belongs to the root of widening and making room. The offering is not only set apart; it has width, an actual space within the whole.
ALSO GROWS
rachav: To grow wide or make room.
רָחַב
This verb shares the root of “breadth,” revealing width as room made within the land.
Rehoboth: Broad places or open spaces.
רְחֹבוֹת
This place-name carries the same root of spaciousness, reinforcing that the measured breadth is real room allotted.
THE PATTERN
What is set apart for God takes a defined place within a larger whole.
Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring me a lifted offering. From every man whose heart stirs him to give, you take my lifted offering.But who am I, and what is my people, that we should hold the strength to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things come from you, and from your hand have we given to you.You also, as living stones, are built up into a house of breath, a set-apart priesthood, to carry up sacrifices of breath, well received by God through Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring me a lifted offering. From every man whose heart stirs him to give, you take my lifted offering.The Hebrew word translated “offering” here is terumah, the same word behind “oblation” in Ezekiel. Exodus shows the lifted contribution coming willingly from the heart; Ezekiel gives that same kind of dedicated gift an exact length and breadth.
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