What Does Ezekiel 47:18 Mean in the King James?
And the east side ye shall measure from Hauran, and from Damascus, and from Gilead, and from the land of Israel by Jordan, from the border unto the east sea. And this is the east side.
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 eastern boundary becomes more than a direction: it is measured through named places to the sea.
THE MEANING
This verse gives the eastern side a traceable extent through Hauran, Damascus, Gilead, Israel by the Jordan, and the eastern sea. Its repeated “from” clauses tie the boundary to named places, and the final measurement makes the edge explicit.
THE ROOT
תָּמֹדּוּ
tamoddu
GROWS FROM
מ־ד־ד
m-d-d
to measure, mark out an extent
“measure” in this verse is tamoddu. Here measuring makes the eastern edge knowable by tracing it through landmarks. The same root can name both the act of measuring and a measured dimension, so the boundary is a line with a defined extent.
ALSO GROWS
middah: measure, dimension, extent
מִדָּה
This noun names the defined size that the measuring act establishes.
wayemaddedem: he measured them
וַיְמַדְּדֵם
This verbal form shows the same root laying out a line by measurement.
קָדִים
qadim
GROWS FROM
ק־ד־ם
q-d-m
to be in front, precede
The Hebrew word for the eastern side belongs to a family that can mean what is in front and what is earlier. The verse repeats that family in “east sea” (qadmoni), linking the direction and its landmark in a way the English compass labels conceal.
ALSO GROWS
qedem: front, east, former time or antiquity
קֶדֶם
The word holds direction and what came before within one Hebrew family.
qadmoni: eastern, former or ancient
קַדְמוֹנִי
This form appears in the phrase “east sea,” repeating the root at the boundary’s endpoint.
יַרְדֵּן
Yarden
GROWS FROM
י־ר־ד
y-r-d
to descend, go down
The Jordan’s name carries the sense of descending. The boundary is tied to a named river whose movement is already present in its name.
ALSO GROWS
yarad: to descend, go down
יָרַד
This is the verb behind the river’s name.
yored: descending, one who goes down
יוֹרֵד
This form keeps the downward movement audible inside the Jordan’s name.
THE PATTERN
A boundary becomes legible when its line is tied to named features and a defined portion.
And Jordan was the border of it on the east side. This was the inheritance of the children of Benjamin, by the coasts thereof round about, according to their families.The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;THE THREAD
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?Isaiah uses the same madad root for measuring waters. Here the word traces a territory’s edge; there it reaches across waters and the heavens, widening the scale carried by this small act of measurement.
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