What Does Ezra 5:15 Mean?
And he said to him, Lift up these vessels, go, place them in the temple that is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be built in its place.
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 said unto him, Take these vessels, go, carry them into the temple that is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be builded in his place.THE KEY
Restoration is not complete when displaced things are merely recovered; the dwelling that holds them also rises in its proper place.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks now of restoration as both return and rebuilding: what has been displaced comes back, and the dwelling itself is made whole in its proper place. Jerusalem (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, Yerushalayim) carries shalom (שָׁלוֹם, wholeness) in its name, so the destination bears the sense of restoration arriving at wholeness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what is displaced or broken is beyond restoration: both what belongs inside and the dwelling itself can return to place.
THE ROOT
יִתְבְּנֵא
yitbenê
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
To build, establish.
The Aramaic verb translated “be builded” carries the same root as Hebrew banah, “to build.” The verse joins the return of the vessels to the rebuilding of the house: restoration includes both what belongs within the dwelling and the dwelling itself.
ALSO GROWS
banah: Built
בָּנָה
The Hebrew cognate makes the shared root visible: the house rises through the act of building.
binyan: Building, structure
בִּנְיָן
This noun shows the root’s movement from the act of building to the structure that stands.
banui: Built
בָּנוּי
This form describes the result of the root’s action: a dwelling brought into being.
THE PATTERN
God’s dwelling takes shape through concrete acts of making, building, and being built together.
And let them make me a set-apart place, that I may pitch my tent among them.A Song of degrees for Solomon. Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders toil in emptiness. Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in emptiness.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
A Song of degrees for Solomon. Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders toil in emptiness. Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in emptiness.Psalm 127:1 repeats the root בנה (banah, build) and reveals the deeper source of the building: the LORD himself. The restored house is both a structure returned to its place and a dwelling whose making depends on God.
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