What Does Zechariah 4:8 Mean?
And the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
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
Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,THE KEY
The word is already moving toward the hearer before its content is disclosed.
THE MEANING
The word of the LORD comes to you as something moving into reach, already carrying speech before its content is disclosed. You meet the message’s arrival before you meet its full meaning; the verse makes arrival part of revelation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The word is not only a fixed message waiting at a distance; it is described as coming toward the hearer.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר
devar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak or utter; דָּבָר (dābār) also means a word, matter, or thing.
The same root holds speech and matter together: the word that comes is also a matter being spoken. “Came … saying” presents revelation as movement toward a hearer that becomes utterance, not merely as a message sitting still.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: A spoken word, matter, affair, or thing.
דָּבָר
It shows that “the word” can carry the sense of a matter being brought into speech.
dibbēr: To speak or utter.
דִּבֵּר
The verse’s “saying” echoes the speaking action held in the same root as “word.”
THE PATTERN
The divine word moves toward a hearer before becoming something heard and answered.
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,While Annas and Caiaphas were the chief priests, the word of God came upon John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, the word of trust that we herald.THE THREAD
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield, and your very great wages.Genesis 15:1 uses the same דָּבָר (dābār, word or matter) root for a word that comes “in a vision.” It opens the possibility that the word reaches a hearer as an encounter, not only as a sentence.
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