What Does Nehemiah 3:15 Mean?
And the spring gate Shallun son of Col-hozeh, ruler of a district of Mizpah, strengthened. He built it, and covered it, and set in place its doors, its locks, and its bars, and the wall of the pool of Siloah by the king's garden, and up to the stairs that go down from the city of David.
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
But the gate of the fountain repaired Shallun the son of Col-hozeh, the ruler of part of Mizpah; he built it, and covered it, and set up the doors thereof, the locks thereof, and the bars thereof, and the wall of the pool of Siloah by the king’s garden, and unto the stairs that go down from the city of David.THE KEY
The pool’s name carries the root “send forth,” so the wall being repaired surrounds water whose nature is movement.
THE MEANING
A spring has a gate, the sent water has a pool, and descending steps connect it to the city of David (דָּוִד, Dāwīd, “beloved”). The water is not isolated: its entrance, boundary, and route are held together by repair. Restoration appears as a passage made firm around life already flowing.
THE ROOT
הַשֶּׁלַח
ha-Shelach
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
Send forth; release.
“Siloah” in this verse is ha-Shelach. The Hebrew calls it the pool of Shelah, a name connected to שָׁלַח (shalach), “send forth” or “release.” The water’s name carries movement inside the place being repaired: it is a pool of what is sent forth.
ALSO GROWS
shalach: Send, send forth, release.
שָׁלַח
This root gives the pool’s name its sense of water moving outward.
shaliach: Messenger; one who is sent.
שָׁלִיחַ
Like the pool’s water, a messenger is defined by being sent forth.
מַעֲלוֹת
ma'alot
GROWS FROM
עלה
alah
Go up; rise; ascend.
The Hebrew calls these stairs ma’alot, literally “ascents,” while the verse says they descend from the city. The word keeps the upward motion inside the structure even as the route carries someone down.
ALSO GROWS
alah: Go up, rise, ascend.
עָלָה
This is the movement named within ma’alot, the stairs in the passage.
ma'alah: An ascent, step, or degree.
מַעֲלָה
The stairs are named as a series of ascents, even along a descending route.
הֶחֱזִיק
heḥeziq
GROWS FROM
חזק
ḥazaq
Be firm or strong; make firm or strong.
“strengthened” in this verse is heḥeziq. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of strengthening or making firm. Repair here is the work of giving the gate and waterway the strength to hold their place in the city’s route.
ALSO GROWS
ḥazaq: Be strong; grow firm.
חָזַק
The root’s basic sense is firmness, the quality the repaired gate needs.
ḥizzeq: Strengthen; reinforce.
חִזֵּק
This form makes explicit the strengthening carried by the verse’s word for repair.
THE PATTERN
The channel that carries water also reveals how a place receives, routes, or refuses life.
Because this people refuses the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoices in Rezin and Remaliah's son;This same Hezekiah also stopped up the upper outflow of the waters of Gihon, and straightened it down to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah broke through in all his works.And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.THE THREAD
And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.John gives the pool’s interpretation as “Sent”; Nehemiah’s הַשֶּׁלַח (ha-Shelach, “the pool of Shelah”) is connected to שלח (shalach, “send forth, release”). There, the sent water is a place a person enters and emerges seeing, opening the repaired pool’s waterway into an image of restored perception.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us