Ezekiel 20:2

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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דְבַר

dâbâr

H1697

“word of”

Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct

Appears 1,455× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 11:1

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H1696

TWOT: 399a

speech, word, speaking, thing - speech - saying, utterance - word, words - business, occupation, acts, matter, case, something, manner

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

5: words
5: distinct lemmas
Prophets: section

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
2 nouns
1 preposition

Verb forms

וַיְהִ֥י Qal · Sequential Imperfect
לֵאמֹֽר Qal · Infinitive Construct

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 8 words from the Hebrew and 10 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 5 Hebrew tokens and 7 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Ezekiel 20:2 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיְהִ֥י דְבַר יְהוָ֖ה אֵלַ֥י לֵאמֹֽר

The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Ezekiel 20:2 Septuagint · lemma form

καί γίγνομαι λόγος κύριος πρός ἐγώ λέγω

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וַהֲוָה פִתְגַם נְבוּאָה מִן קֳדָם יְיָ עִמִי לְמֵימָר:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Ezekiel 20:2 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Eze 20:2 Then came the word of the LORD unto me, saying,

Ver. 2. Then came.] See on Eze 18:1.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

Then came the word of the Lord unto me,.... While the elders were sitting before him, by an impulse upon his mind, dictating things unto him:

saying: as follows:

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

While these men were with Ezekiel God gives him instruction what to say to them.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

the word of Yahweh came

This is an idiom that is used to introduce something that God told his prophets or his people. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 3:16. AT: "Yahweh spoke this message" or "Yahweh spoke these words" (See: Idiom)

Son of man

"Son of a human being" or "Son of humanity." God calls Ezekiel this to emphasize that Ezekiel is only a human being. God is eternal and powerful, but humans are not. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 2:1. AT: "Mortal person" or "Human"

As I live

"As surely as I am alive." Yahweh uses this expression to show that what he says next is certainly true. This is a way of making a solemn promise. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 5:11. AT: "I solemnly swear" (See: Idiom)

Have you come to inquire of me?

Yahweh asks this rhetorical question to emphasize that the elders should not be inquiring of him. AT: "You should not come to inquire of me." (See: Rhetorical Question)

I will not be inquired of by you

This can be stated in active form. AT: "I will not allow you to inquire of me" (See: Active or Passive)

this is the Lord Yahweh's declaration

Yahweh speaks of himself by name to express the certainty of what he is declaring. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 5:11. AT: "this is what the Lord Yahweh has declared" or "this is what I, the Lord Yahweh, have declared" (See: First, Second, or Third Person)

translationWords

word of God

Son of Man

elder

Lord Yahweh

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Ezekiel, in the Prophets, opens this verse with 5 words (5 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is dâbâr (“word”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word dâbâr carries the sense “word.” How does it shape the verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וַיְהִ֥י» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 5 Hebrew ↔ 7 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 2 words in this verse.
5 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 5 words in this verse.