Ezekiel 42:18

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He measured on the south side five hundred reeds with the measuring reed.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

Septuagint runs longer here — compare

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הַדָּר֖וֹם

dârôwm

H1864

“the · south”

Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 17× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Deuteronomy 33:23

Full BDB Definition

Origin: of uncertain derivation

TWOT: 454d

south

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 →

9: words
8: distinct lemmas
Prophets: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is הַדָּר֖וֹם south H1864 — appearing just 17 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הַדָּר֖וֹם south H1864 occurs in 14 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

1 verb
5 nouns
2 adjectives
1 particle

Verb forms

מָדָ֑ד Qal · Perfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

קָנִ֖ים reed H7070 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 13 words from the Hebrew and 21 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably longer here. See the side-by-side →

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 9 Hebrew tokens and 17 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.

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably longer than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 21 words vs World English Bible 13. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

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

Hebrew Ezekiel 42:18 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

אֵ֛ת ר֥וּחַ הַדָּר֖וֹם מָדָ֑ד חֲמֵשׁ מֵא֥וֹת קָנִ֖ים בִּקְנֵ֥ה הַמִּדָּֽה

He measured on the south side five hundred reeds with the measuring reed.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Ezekiel 42:18 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ἐπιστρέφω πρός θάλασσα καί διαμετρέω ὁ κατά πρόσωπον ὁ θάλασσα πεντακόσιοι ἐν ὁ κάλαμος ὁ μέτρον

And he turned to the west, and measured in front of the west side, five hundred cubits with the measuring reed.

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)

יַת רוּחַ דָרוֹמָא מְשַׁח חֲמֵשׁ מְאָה קָנִין בִּקְנֵי מִשְׁחֲתָא:

(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 42:18 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 42:18 He measured the south side, five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed.

Ver. 18. He measured the north side, five hundred reeds.] To show that many should come from all coasts and quarters to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. {Mat 8:11} {See Trapp on "Mat 8:11"}

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.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Or, wind.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 18. See Clarke on Eze 42:16.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

John Gill's Exposition

He measured the south side, five hundred reeds,.... From the two angles of that side, east and west; and it amounted to just the same number of reeds, even five hundred reeds, or one thousand seven hundred and fifty yards:

with the measuring reed; the same as before; here, and in the next verse, the phrase "round about" is not used, but is to be understood; and having been repeated, there was no need of mentioning it again.

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

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 9 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is dârôwm (“south”). The Greek Septuagint runs longer here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “south” (dârôwm) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Deuteronomy 33:23 shares the word «south» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“reed” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
Compared with the Hebrew, the Septuagint runs longer here. What questions does that raise?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «מָדָ֑ד» is Qal Perfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 9 Hebrew ↔ 17 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 8 words in this verse.
“reed” occurs 2× in this single verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.