What Does 1 Chronicles 21:7 Mean?
And this thing was bad in the eyes of God, so he struck Israel.
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 God was displeased with this thing; therefore he smote Israel.THE KEY
The Hebrew says the thing was evil in God’s eyes, and that judgment lands as a blow on Israel.
THE MEANING
You meet a stark claim: God sees this thing as evil, and Israel receives the blow as a people. The verse holds the violence of that judgment in plain view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that wrongdoing’s consequences always stay with the one who commits it is undone here: the verse says the strike falls on Israel.
THE ROOT
וַיַּךְ
wayyakh
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
To strike or inflict a blow.
“struck” in this verse is wayyakh. The word makes judgment bodily: Israel receives a strike. This word family names both a blow and the one who delivers it, holding impact and agency together.
ALSO GROWS
makkah: A blow, wound, or plague.
מַכָּה
The related noun makes the force of the verb concrete: this is harm that lands.
makkeh: One who strikes.
מַכֶּה
This form names the agent of the strike, echoing how the verse makes God the actor and Israel the one struck.
וַיֵּרַע
vayyēraʿ
GROWS FROM
רעע
r-ʿ-ʿ
To be bad, evil, or grievous.
The phrase holds a moral appraisal, this thing is evil in God’s eyes, beneath the KJV’s “was displeased.” Related words in this family also speak of harm or calamity, placing judgment beside its lived consequence.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad or evil.
רַע
This related form makes explicit the moral judgment carried by “displeased.”
raʿah: Harm, calamity, or misfortune.
רָעָה
This related word brings the consequence of judgment into view alongside the appraisal of the thing itself.
THE PATTERN
A deed or wound can cross the boundary of the individual and become a consequence carried by a whole community.
And the LORD struck the people, because they made the calf which Aaron made.But the children of Israel broke trust with the devoted thing, for Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took from the devoted thing, and the burning of the LORD's anger flared against the children of Israel.If one limb aches, all the limbs ache with it, and if one is clothed in weight, all of them rejoice with it.THE THREAD
And David spoke to the LORD when he saw the messenger who struck the people, and said, "Look, I myself have missed the mark, and I myself have bent crooked. But these sheep, what have they done? Let your hand, I pray, be against me and against my father's house."The same Hebrew root for “smote” appears in David’s words about the people being struck. He then names his own wrongdoing and asks what the sheep have done, bringing the king’s responsibility into view beside the communal blow.
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