What Does 1 Chronicles 17:26 Mean?
And now, LORD, you are God, and have spoken this goodness to your servant.
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
And now, LORD, thou art God, and hast promised this goodness unto thy servant:THE KEY
The promise is also a speaking: God’s goodness is named before it is visible.
THE MEANING
As you read, you meet God as the One who speaks goodness to the servant. That good is already named, even while its fulfillment remains ahead. What you can see now does not exhaust what has been spoken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that goodness is real only once it becomes visible: here, the goodness is spoken before its fulfillment.
THE ROOT
וַתְּדַבֵּר
vatdabbēr
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak or utter; the related noun דָּבָר (dābār) can mean a word, matter, or thing.
The Hebrew verb behind “hast promised” is “you spoke,” making the promise audible before its fulfillment is seen. The same root’s noun can mean both “word” and “matter,” joining what God speaks with the good spoken to the servant.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: Spoke; speaks.
דִּבֵּר
The verb brings the promise into view as spoken goodness.
dābār: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
This range lets the spoken word and the promised good share the same root.
הַטּוֹבָה
haṭṭōvāh
GROWS FROM
טוב
Good, pleasing, or beneficial.
The Hebrew can carry the sense of “this good thing,” giving the promise a concrete object. Its root also forms a verb for doing good or benefiting, so goodness is more than an abstract quality here.
ALSO GROWS
ṭōv: Good, pleasing, or beneficial.
טוֹב
This is the core quality named in the promise.
hēṭīv: To do good or benefit.
הֵיטִיב
This verbal form shows the root’s movement from goodness as a quality to goodness enacted.
THE PATTERN
What God speaks as good is not empty sound; it moves toward its fulfillment.
For he says, and it comes to be; he commands, and it stands.So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.And Flourishing is she who leaned her full weight, for there will be a completion of what was spoken to her from beside the LORD.THE THREAD
So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.Isaiah’s “word,” דָּבָר (dābār, word or matter), shares the root דבר with the Hebrew verb rendered “hast promised” here. Isaiah opens the movement inside that root: what is spoken goes forth and accomplishes its purpose.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us