What Does Revelation 21:16 Mean?
And the city lies four-cornered, and its length is as great as its width. And he measures the city with the reed, twelve thousand stades. Its length and width and height are equal.
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 city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.THE KEY
The city’s equal height, length, and breadth give it the cube-form of the inner sanctuary, so sanctuary-space fills the whole city.
THE MEANING
The city is equal in all three dimensions, a cube rather than only a square in plan. Its form echoes the inner sanctuary, so the vision presents the whole city as sacred space. Nothing in it lies outside that shared form.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
God’s presence is confined to one inner chamber, leaving the rest of life outside sacred space.
THE ROOT
ἴσα
isa
GROWS FROM
ἰσο-
iso-
same in measure; equal
The Greek says the length, breadth, and height are the same in measure: the city is a cube, not merely a square. The ἰσο- word family also describes equality and equal standing, giving no dimension a lesser place in the city’s form.
ALSO GROWS
isotēs: equality
ἰσότης
This related noun names equality directly, echoing the shared measure of all three dimensions.
isotimos: equally honored or equally precious
ἰσότιμος
This related word carries equal measure into equal standing, resonating with a city whose dimensions share one measure.
τετράγωνος
tetragōnos
GROWS FROM
γων-
gōn-
angle, corner
“lies four-cornered” in this verse is tetragōnos. The Greek word for “foursquare” combines “four” with the corner element γωνία. That same corner element appears in the word for “chief cornerstone,” linking the city’s four-cornered form to the language of a building’s foundation.
ALSO GROWS
gōnia: corner, angle
γωνία
This is the corner element within “foursquare”; the verse’s geometry is built from four such angles.
akrogōniaios: chief cornerstone
ἀκρογωνιαῖος
This word shares the corner element and shows how the same Greek word-family reaches from a city’s shape to its foundational stone.
THE PATTERN
The vision extends the measured form of the inner sanctuary until the whole city bears the shape and name of divine presence.
And the innermost room, in its forepart, was twenty forearms in length, and twenty forearms in breadth, and twenty forearms in its height; and he sheathed it with clean gold; and so he covered the altar which was of cedar.It was eighteen thousand measures all the way around, and the name of the city from that day shall be, The LORD is there.And I hear a great voice from the throne, saying, Look, the tent of God is with humankind, and he will pitch his tent among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.THE THREAD
And the innermost room, in its forepart, was twenty forearms in length, and twenty forearms in breadth, and twenty forearms in its height; and he sheathed it with clean gold; and so he covered the altar which was of cedar.The oracle has the same equal length, breadth, and height that define the city here. That shared cube-form opens the image: what once marks the inner sanctuary now describes the whole city.
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