What Does Ezekiel 47:8 Mean in the King James?
Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed.
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 sea is healed as the river’s flow reaches it.
THE MEANING
The current moves through the barren place and into the sea; there, the waters are healed. The verse presents healing as release reaching what has been unable to sustain life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a damaged place is beyond repair dissolves here: the sea’s waters can be healed when the river reaches them.
THE ROOT
נִרְפּוּ
nirpu
GROWS FROM
רפא
rapha
To heal, restore to health.
“healed” in this verse is nirpu. The same root names both the healing of these waters and a healer. The related-sounding רָפָה (raphah, to loosen or release) has a different final letter and is a distinct root, yet its echo opens a striking image: healing as loosening what holds these waters in a damaged state.
ALSO GROWS
rofe: Healer, physician.
רֹפֵא
The waters’ healing belongs to the same word family as the one who heals.
refu’ah: Healing, medicine.
רְפוּאָה
This branch shows healing as a restoring process, not merely a label applied to the sea.
THE PATTERN
Healing reaches what is damaged and restores its capacity for life.
And he cried unto the LORD; and the LORD shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them,He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.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
He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.The Hebrew word for “healed” here shares the root רפא (rapha, to heal) with Ezekiel’s healed waters. The connection carries the river’s image into the reader’s life: healing reaches what is in ruin through what is sent into it.
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