What Does Zechariah 2:1 Mean?
I lifted my eyes again and looked, and there was a man with a measuring cord in his hand.
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
I lifted up mine eyes again, and looked, and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand.THE KEY
The measuring line signals that what is coming into view has an extent that can be seen.
THE MEANING
Your sight is lifted, and a figure comes into view carrying a cord of measure. Seeing and measuring meet: the vision gives shape to what is still being disclosed. The next verse names that extent as Jerusalem’s breadth and length.
THE ROOT
חֶבֶל מִדָּה
ḥevel middah
GROWS FROM
מדד
To measure, to mark out an extent.
“measuring cord” in this verse is ḥevel middah. The phrase is literally a “cord of measure”: middah names the extent, from madad, “to measure.” The image holds both the means of measuring and the extent being disclosed, so the vision’s space is not shapeless.
ALSO GROWS
madad: To measure.
מָדַד
This verb names the action the cord makes possible; the next verse uses it for measuring Jerusalem.
middah: Measure, size, or extent.
מִדָּה
This is the word in the phrase, placing measurable extent at the center of the image.
THE PATTERN
A measuring line gives visible form to an expanse whose breadth and length are being revealed.
Then I said, Where are you going? And he said to me, To measure Jerusalem, to see how wide it is and how long it is.And he brought me there, and behold, a man whose look was like the look of bronze, with a cord of flax in his hand and a measuring reed, and he stood in the gate.And the one who speaks with me holds a golden reed to measure the city, and its gates, and its wall.THE THREAD
Then I said, Where are you going? And he said to me, To measure Jerusalem, to see how wide it is and how long it is.The same measuring root, מדד (madad), appears as the action that follows the first glimpse of the cord. The line turns the image into a way of seeing Jerusalem’s breadth and length.
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