What Does Ezra 1:3 Mean?
Who is there among you from all his people? Let his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, who is God in Jerusalem.
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
Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem.THE KEY
The Hebrew for “go up” is the same root used for an offering that rises to God, so the journey to Jerusalem carries the language of ascent toward the LORD.
THE MEANING
God’s presence accompanies your ascent toward Jerusalem, and the movement takes shape in rebuilding the LORD’s house. The journey toward wholeness reaches a visible form in a dwelling set apart for God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The idea that return is only an inward feeling gives way here: the verse joins ascent with the tangible work of rebuilding.
THE ROOT
וְיַעַל
v’ya‘al
GROWS FROM
עלה
Rise, ascend, go up.
The verb for the person’s journey belongs to the same root as עֹלָה (ʿolah), an offering that ascends to God. English gives “go up” as simple travel, while the Hebrew also lets the journey resonate with an upward movement toward the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
ʿaliyah: Ascent, going up.
עֲלִיָּה
The person’s movement toward Jerusalem is expressed as an ascent, not simply a change of location.
ʿolah: A burnt offering; literally, that which ascends.
עֹלָה
This branch gives the journey’s upward language a connection to what rises toward God.
וַיִּבֶן
vayyiven
GROWS FROM
בנה
Build, establish.
The root’s branch בֵּן (ben, son) connects building with the continuation of a household. Here “build” can carry the sense of establishing a dwelling with a future, as well as raising its physical structure.
ALSO GROWS
ben: Son.
בֵּן
This related word lets building resonate with establishing a household and its continuation.
mivneh: Structure, building.
מִבְנֶה
This branch names the structure that the verb in Ezra describes bringing into being.
THE PATTERN
The return toward God’s dwelling takes shape through ascent and the work of building.
There the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, a witness for Israel, to extend their hands to the name of the LORD.Then I answered them and said to them, "The God of the heavens, he will break through for us. Therefore we, his servants, will arise and build, but you have no portion, nor alignment, nor remembrance, in Jerusalem."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
There the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, a witness for Israel, to extend their hands to the name of the LORD.Psalm 122 uses the same Hebrew root עלה (ʿalah, rise or ascend) as Ezra’s “go up.” Ezra joins that ascent to rebuilding; the Psalm shows the journey to Jerusalem as one shared by the tribes.
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