What Does Ezekiel 43:4 Mean in the King James?
And the glory of the LORD came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The glory that enters is kavod, weight: the LORD’s presence crosses the threshold as something substantial, not merely something seen.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s weight comes into the house by a gate facing east. For you now, presence is pictured as an arrival with direction and a threshold, not only as an idea held at a distance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
God’s presence is only an abstract idea or a distant display. Here it comes as weight through a gate and enters a house.
THE ROOT
כְּבוֹד
kəvōd
GROWS FROM
כבד
To be heavy or weighty; by extension, to be honored.
Kavod carries the sense of weight beneath what English calls glory. The verse presents the LORD’s presence as something with substance that arrives at the house, holding weight and honor together.
ALSO GROWS
kāvēd: Heavy, weighty.
כָּבֵד
The shared root makes the weight within kavod audible: the glory entering the house carries substance.
kibbēd: To honor, treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
Honor and weight belong to the same root-family, joining the LORD’s weighty presence with the honor it carries.
בָּא
bāʾ
GROWS FROM
בוא
To come or enter.
“came” in this verse is bāʾ. The verse gives glory a movement: it comes into the house. The weight does not remain distant; it crosses a threshold.
ALSO GROWS
bōʾ: To come, enter.
בּוֹא
This is the root of the verb describing the LORD’s glory entering the house.
māvōʾ: Entrance, entry.
מָבוֹא
This related form brings the root’s sense of coming into the image of a place of entry.
הַקָּדִים
haqqādîm
GROWS FROM
קדם
To be in front or precede.
The Hebrew word for east belongs to a family that also carries the sense of what is in front or comes before. Here that directional word names where the gate faces, making its orientation part of the arrival.
ALSO GROWS
qédem: East, front, ancient time.
קֶדֶם
This related form carries both the directional sense of east and the sense of what lies before.
qādam: To precede, come before, meet.
קָדַם
The verb preserves the root’s sense of going before, echoing the forward orientation in the word for east.
THE PATTERN
Across scripture, glory is weight-bearing presence: it comes through gates, fills a dwelling, and is named as weight.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;THE THREAD
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.The Hebrew uses both kavod (כבד, k-b-d: weight, glory) and bo (בוא, b-w-ʾ: come, enter). Psalm pictures the King of glory coming in through lifted gates; Ezekiel names the gate and route by which that same weight enters the house.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us