What Does Zechariah 7:4 Mean?
Then the word of the LORD of hosts 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
Then came the word of the LORD of hosts unto me, saying,THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “word” also means “matter” or “thing,” so the speech that arrives carries substance.
THE MEANING
A word from the LORD of hosts meets you as a direct address. Before its content unfolds, the verse makes the arrival itself visible: speech comes to a person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This loosens the belief that the divine word is only distant information: here, it reaches a person directly, before its content is even given.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
dabar
to speak
Davar (דָּבָר, “word” or “matter”) grows from the root דבר, whose verbal branch dibber (דִּבֵּר, “he spoke”) means speaking. The word that comes to you is speech with substance: an address that carries a matter, not a detached sound.
ALSO GROWS
davar: word; matter; thing
דָּבָר
This noun holds spoken language and the matter being spoken about within the same word.
dibber: he spoke
דִּבֵּר
The verbal branch shows the word as speech in motion, arriving as an address.
THE PATTERN
God’s word comes as a personal address whose arrival precedes the message’s unfolding.
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.Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,My sheep hear and respond to my voice, and I perceive them, and they follow me.THE THREAD
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,Both verses use davar (דָּבָר, “word”) in the same arrival pattern: the word comes to a person and opens into speech. That repetition presents the word as an encounter, not only as a sentence on a page.
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