What Does Habakkuk 2:20 Mean?
But the LORD is in his set-apart temple. Hush before his face, all the earth.
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
But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.THE KEY
The whole earth’s hush is the answer to a presence already inhabiting the LORD’s set-apart temple.
THE MEANING
The LORD is present in his set-apart temple, and the whole earth falls silent before him. The silence is the earth’s recognition of a presence already here.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that silence means divine absence; the verse places the LORD already in his temple as the whole earth falls quiet.
THE ROOT
קָדְשׁוֹ
qodshō
GROWS FROM
קדשׁ
q-d-sh
Set apart, consecrate.
“set-apart” in this verse is qodshō. The verse locates the LORD in the temple of his set-apartness, so the hush meets a presence already there. This root points to a space belonging to the divine, and the whole earth grows quiet before that reality.
ALSO GROWS
qādōsh: Set apart, consecrated.
קָדוֹשׁ
It describes what is marked as belonging to the divine.
qōdesh: Set-apartness, sacredness, or a sacred place.
קֹדֶשׁ
It names the set-apartness expressed in “his holy temple.”
miqdāsh: Sanctuary, a set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
It shows the same root naming a place set apart for divine presence.
THE PATTERN
When the LORD’s presence is disclosed, the created world falls quiet before him.
Hush, all flesh, before the face of the LORD, for he is roused from his set-apart dwelling.Release your grip, and perceive that I AM God; I am lifted high among the nations, I am lifted high in the earth.And when he opens the seventh seal, there is silence in heaven for about half an hour.THE THREAD
Hush, all flesh, before the face of the LORD, for he is roused from his set-apart dwelling.The command הַס (has, “be silent”) is the same in both verses, and Zechariah describes the LORD rising from מְעוֹן קָדְשׁוֹ (meʿōn qodshō, “his holy habitation”). The repeated words reveal the hush as the earth’s answer to the LORD’s presence in his set-apart dwelling.
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