What Does Ezekiel 5:3 Mean?
Take also from these a few in number, and bind them in the wings of your garment.
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
Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “skirts” also means “wing,” so the few are bound into a garment’s wing: held close at the edge of covering.
THE MEANING
The verse makes the remainder tangible: only a few, counted and bound into the edge of a garment. That edge is also a wing, so the image holds together nearness and covering. Their smallness remains visible; what survives is not pictured as a crowd.
THE ROOT
וְצָרַרְתָּ
wetsararta
GROWS FROM
צָרַר
tsarar
To bind or tie up; the same root also carries the sense of pressing into narrowness.
“bind” in this verse is wetsararta. The few are not merely set aside; they are tied into a fold. The same root gives צַר (tsar, narrow or tight), joining the act of binding with the pressure of constriction.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight; also an adversary or foe.
צַר
The shared root lets binding carry a sense of being pressed into a narrow space.
tsarah: Distress or trouble.
צָרָה
The root links a bound or compressed state with the experience of distress.
בִּכְנָפֶיךָ
bikhenafekha
GROWS FROM
כָּנָף
kanaph
Wing, edge, or extremity, including the corner of a garment.
“wings” in this verse is bikhenafekha. English “skirts” makes this sound only like a clothing edge. The Hebrew כָּנָף (kanaph, wing or garment edge) holds both images together: the few are bound into the garment’s wing.
ALSO GROWS
kanaph: Wing, edge, or corner of a garment.
כָּנָף
This is the word behind “skirts,” joining a garment’s edge to the image of a wing.
kenafayim: Wings, the dual form of the word.
כְּנָפַיִם
The plural form makes the wing sense explicit, revealing what the English clothing image alone can conceal.
מְעַט
me'at
GROWS FROM
מָעַט
ma'at
To be few or small; to diminish.
The word marks a small number, while its verbal family also means to diminish. The remnant is defined by reduction: what is held is only a few.
ALSO GROWS
me'at: A little, a few.
מְעַט
This is the word used for the small number taken and bound.
him'it: To reduce or make few.
הִמְעִיט
This form makes the root’s movement toward diminished numbers explicit.
THE PATTERN
After a dividing, the text follows the small remnant that remains and carries it forward.
But yet a tenth will be in it, and it will turn back and be burned, as a terebinth and as an oak, whose stump stands in them when they cast their leaves; a set-apart seed is its stump.And I will bring the third through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will test them as gold is tested; they will call upon my nature, and I will hear and respond to them; I will say, It is my people; and they will say, The LORD is my God.So also now, in this present season, there is a remnant left behind, picked out by favor.THE THREAD
And he said, Who are you? And she answered, I am Ruth, your handmaid. So spread your wing over your handmaid, for you are a redeemer.The Hebrew כָּנָף (kanaph, wing or garment edge) is the same word behind “skirts” in both verses. Ezekiel’s few are bound into that edge; Ruth asks for it to be spread over her, revealing the garment’s edge as a place of covering and nearness.
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