What Does Ezekiel 47:7 Mean in the King James?
Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other.
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 river’s edge is not where life runs out; it is where abundance becomes visible.
THE MEANING
Your return brings the river’s edge into view, crowded with trees on both sides. Life gathers where water meets land; the boundary becomes a place of growth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The riverbank is not barren ground at the edge of life; here, it is where life multiplies.
THE ROOT
שְׂפַת
sefat
GROWS FROM
שָׂפָה
safah
Lip; edge or border.
The word translated “bank” is literally the river’s “lip,” the edge where water meets land. The same Hebrew word also means “language,” so English “bank” gives only the geography of a word that carries a wider range of meaning.
ALSO GROWS
safah: Lip; the edge of something.
שָׂפָה
The river’s bank is its lip: the point where its water meets the land and the trees take root.
safah: Language or speech.
שָׂפָה
The same word names language as well as a physical edge, a range that English “bank” leaves hidden.
שׁוּב
shuv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
To turn back or return.
“returned” in this verse is shuv. The verse begins with the movement of returning, then opens onto a riverbank thick with trees. Return here brings the river’s abundance back into view.
ALSO GROWS
shav: Turns back; returns.
שָׁב
This is the movement expressed in “when I had returned”: coming back precedes the sight of life on both banks.
heshiv: To bring or turn back; to restore.
הֵשִׁיב
This related form extends return to what is brought back, echoing how the returning gaze finds abundant life along the river.
THE PATTERN
Life flourishes along the banks of life-giving water, with nourishment reaching outward from the river.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.THE THREAD
And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.The word translated “bank” is again שְׂפַת (sefat, “lip” or “edge”), and the same banks now carry fruit for food and leaves for healing. This opens the trees in the present verse into a fuller picture of nourishment reaching outward from the river.
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