What Does 1 Chronicles 13:5 Mean?
So David assembled all Israel, from Shihor of Egypt to the entering of Hemath, to bring the ark of God from Kirjathjearim.
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
So David gathered all Israel together, from Shihor of Egypt even unto the entering of Hemath, to bring the ark of God from Kirjath-jearim.THE KEY
The land’s “entering” and the ark’s “bringing” share one Hebrew root: the whole people gathers into a single movement of arrival.
THE MEANING
The whole people gathers across the land’s span to bring the ark of God. Their shared movement gives them a common center: the ark’s arrival involves everyone, not just one household or place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the sacred can remain a private concern: here the whole people gathers into its arrival.
THE ROOT
לְבוֹא
levo
GROWS FROM
בוא
bo
To come, enter, or arrive.
“entering / to bring” in this verse is levo. The land’s boundary is described as an “entering,” and the purpose is to “bring” the ark; both words grow from בוא (bo), meaning to come, enter, or arrive. English separates the boundary’s entry from the ark’s bringing, while Hebrew holds them inside one movement of arrival.
ALSO GROWS
levo: To enter or come to.
לְבוֹא
This names the northern boundary as the entering of Hamath.
lehavi: To bring, or cause to come.
לְהָבִיא
This names the purpose of the gathering as bringing the ark into its next place.
וַיַּקְהֵל
wayyaqhel
GROWS FROM
קהל
qahal
To assemble or convene.
“assembled” in this verse is wayyaqhel. The Hebrew verb already means to assemble, so “gathered together” gives one verb an English double expression. Its root also names an assembly: the people are both being gathered and taking shape as a gathered body.
ALSO GROWS
qahal: An assembly or congregation.
קָהָל
The people gathered here become an assembly around the shared purpose of bringing the ark.
haqhel: Assemble or gather the people.
הַקְהֵל
The same root appears when the people are called together to hear and learn in Deuteronomy 31:12.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
tsarar
To bind, press in, or constrain.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim carries the sense of tzar, narrowness, with the dual ending -ayim. Here it marks the southern edge of the people’s span; the gathering reaches from that constricted edge toward the shared arrival of the ark.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight, or distressing.
צַר
This is the narrowness heard in the name Mitzrayim.
metzar: A narrow place or strait.
מֵצַר
This branch makes the constriction in the boundary’s name concrete.
THE PATTERN
A people dispersed across a land becomes one when it gathers around a shared center.
He gathers them in from the lands, from the east and the west, from the north and the south.Assemble the people, the men, the women, and the little ones, and the sojourner within your gates, so that they may hear and respond, and so that they may learn, and be struck with awe of the LORD your God, and guard to do all the words of this instruction;For where two or three are gathered together in my nature, there I am in the midst of them.THE THREAD
And David was in awe of God that day, saying, How shall I bring the ark of God to me?“Bring” in this verse repeats בוא (bo), meaning to come, enter, or arrive, the same root that joins “entering” and “to bring” in 1 Chronicles 13:5. The shared movement toward the ark opens into a question about how its arrival unfolds.
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