It was round about eighteen thousand measures: and the name of the city from that day shall be, The LORD is there.

EZEKIEL 48:35KJV
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Ezekiel 48:35 (KJV)

What does Ezekiel 48:35 mean?

Ezekiel 48:35 closes the description of a city with a name that identifies it by the LORD’s presence: “The LORD is there.” For the people who first heard Ezekiel’s message, the name placed God’s presence at the center of the city’s identity.

The verse also gives the distance around the city as eighteen thousand measures. After the gates named for Israel’s tribes in the preceding verses, the final line turns from the city’s layout to its name.

The Hebrew behind Ezekiel 48:35

  • “The LORD is there” — יְהוָה שָׁמָּה (YHWH shammah): The Hebrew name means “The LORD is there.” The KJV’s capital letters in “LORD” represent God’s personal name, commonly written as YHWH.
  • “name” — שֵׁם (shem): This means a name or designation. Here the phrase about the LORD’s presence is presented as the city’s name, not merely as a comment about the city.

Why Ezekiel 48:35 matters

  • The measurement describes the city’s perimeter, not the length of one side. The KJV says the eighteen thousand measures were “round about.”
  • The city is described in connection with all Israel’s tribes. Its twelve gates bear their names in Ezekiel 48:31–34, immediately before the city receives its own name.
  • The phrase “from that day” marks the name as belonging to the time described in Ezekiel’s vision. It gives the final words the form of a future declaration.

Where else these words appear

“eighteen” Hebrew H8083 · used in 105 verses

  • Genesis 5:4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:
  • 1 Kings 7:10 And the foundation was of costly stones, even great stones, stones of ten cubits, and stones of eight cubits.
  • 2 Chronicles 34:8 Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the LORD his God.