What Does Nehemiah 12:38 Mean?
And the other company of them that extended their hands went across from them, and I after them, and the half of the people upon the wall, from above the tower of the furnaces even unto the broad wall.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And the other company of them that gave thanks went over against them, and I after them, and the half of the people upon the wall, from beyond the tower of the furnaces even unto the broad wall;THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind “broad” also names spaciousness, so the city’s boundary carries an image of movement toward openness.
THE MEANING
You meet thanksgiving here as a moving company: one group walks, the speaker follows, and half the people move along the wall. Praise takes up space in the city and travels from the tower of the furnaces toward the broad wall. Gratitude is shared and embodied, not confined to an inward feeling.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that thanksgiving is only private: here it has a body, companions, and a route through public space.
THE ROOT
הַתּוֹדָה
hattodah
GROWS FROM
ידה
y-d-h
Acknowledge, give thanks, praise.
“extended their hands” in this verse is hattodah. Todah is not merely a passing emotion; it is an acknowledgment expressed as thanks or praise. Here, thanksgiving names the moving company itself, making gratitude communal and embodied.
ALSO GROWS
todah: Thanksgiving, praise, or a thanksgiving offering.
תּוֹדָה
This is the noun at the heart of the verse’s procession: thanksgiving becomes something the company carries together.
Yehudah: Judah, a name associated with praise.
יְהוּדָה
Genesis 29:35 links the name to Leah’s words, “now will I praise the LORD,” echoing the praise carried by this company.
הָרְחָבָה
harechavah
GROWS FROM
רחב
r-ḥ-b
Be wide; become spacious.
The word for “broad” belongs to the same root as merḥav, a spacious place. The procession reaches this breadth along the city wall, letting a physical boundary carry an image of openness.
ALSO GROWS
rechov: An open square or street.
רְחוֹב
This branch names a broad, shared urban space, resonating with the public route of the procession.
merḥav: A broad or spacious place.
מֶרְחָב
The same root appears in Psalm 118:5, where a person moves from distress into a large place.
THE PATTERN
Thanksgiving and praise take public, embodied form as they move through shared places.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with a clamor of praise; lift your hands to him, and bless his nature.In the middle of the night Paul and Silas prayed and sang praise to God, and the prisoners listened to them.THE THREAD
From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.“A large place” translates מֶרְחָב (merḥav), from the same root רחב as the “broad” wall. Psalm 118 names a movement from distress into spaciousness directly, giving the wall’s literal width a resonance of release.
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