What Does Ezekiel 47:5 Mean in the King James?
Afterward he measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over.
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 Hebrew for “were risen” comes from גאה (gāʾâ), a root of rising high, so the river becomes unpassable through its upward swell.
THE MEANING
You reach a point where measuring no longer means mastering: the water has risen until it cannot be crossed, and the image becomes one of swimming within it. The repeated limit shifts the question from how to get over the river to what it means to be inside a depth beyond your reach.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that whatever can be measured can be crossed or controlled. Here, the measured river itself exceeds crossing.
THE ROOT
גָּאוּ
gāʾû
GROWS FROM
גאה
gāʾâ
To rise, swell, become high, or be exalted.
“were risen” in this verse is gāʾû. The Hebrew verb belongs to a family of rising high, swelling, and exaltation. The river is not merely fuller: it has climbed until the crossing disappears, a height the English “risen” leaves quieter.
ALSO GROWS
gēʾeh: High, exalted; proud.
גֵּאֶה
This related form carries the same rising and highness into a description of what stands above or is lifted up.
gaʾavah: Height, majesty, pride.
גַּאֲוָה
This noun retains the root consonants ג־א־ה in order and names the highness that the verb enacts in the rising water.
לַעֲבֹר
laʿăvōr
GROWS FROM
עבר
ʿāvar
To cross, pass through, or go beyond.
“pass over” in this verse is laʿăvōr. The Hebrew uses this root for both the speaker’s inability to cross and the river’s inability to be crossed. It makes human limit and river’s unpassability echo in one word: the water changes the relation to the far side.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: To cross, pass through, go beyond.
עָבַר
This verb names the crossing the speaker cannot complete.
ʿēver: Beyond, across; the far side.
עֵבֶר
The same consonants name what lies across, the side the river now puts beyond reach.
THE PATTERN
Water that exceeds containment carries life outward beyond the limits of human passage.
And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh.For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.THE THREAD
Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.Exodus uses the same root גאה twice behind “triumphed gloriously,” a rising or exalting construction. In Ezekiel it names the waters’ rise; in Exodus it describes triumph, linking the river’s swelling with a force that cannot be contained.
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