What Does 1 Chronicles 5:22 Mean?
For many pierced ones fell, because the war was from God. And they settled in their place until the exile.
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
For there fell down many slain, because the war was of God. And they dwelt in their steads until the captivity.THE KEY
Even when a war is named as God’s, the verse keeps its dead visible and the possession of the land temporary.
THE MEANING
The verse holds mass death and settlement together: many are slain in a war it names as God’s, while the people dwell in the places secured by that war. That dwelling lasts only until captivity, so divine agency does not make the bloodshed disappear or the possession permanent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a victory attributed to God must be bloodless or secure forever: the verse names many dead and an eventual captivity.
THE ROOT
חֲלָלִים
ḥalālîm
GROWS FROM
חלל
To pierce or bore through; in related forms, to profane.
“pierced ones” in this verse is ḥalālîm. The Hebrew word for the slain carries the wound into the word itself: its root also means piercing, and related forms mean profaning. The word keeps bodily rupture and desecration close to the count, so “many” does not turn death into an abstraction.
ALSO GROWS
ḥālāl: A pierced person; a slain person.
חָלָל
This noun names the dead in the verse and preserves the bodily violence within the word.
ḥillēl: To profane, to treat as common.
חִלֵּל
This related form adds the sense of violation to the word family that names the slain.
הַמִּלְחָמָה
hamilḥāmāh
GROWS FROM
לחם
To fight or wage battle.
The Hebrew word מִלְחָמָה (milḥāmāh, war) is built from לָחַם (lāḥam, to fight). The phrase attributes the struggle itself to God, while the sentence immediately shows what that struggle costs.
ALSO GROWS
lāḥam: To fight, to wage war.
לָחַם
The verb names the action beneath the noun for war.
lōḥēm: A fighter, one who wages war.
לֹחֵם
This branch names the one engaged in the struggle that the verse attributes to God.
הַגּוֹלָה
haggōlāh
GROWS FROM
גלה
To uncover or reveal; also to be removed into exile.
“exile” in this verse is haggōlāh. English “captivity” sounds like a fixed condition; this Hebrew word belongs to a root that also means to uncover or reveal. After “dwelt,” it marks the shift from habitation to displacement, with an echo of exposure.
ALSO GROWS
gālāh: To uncover, disclose, or reveal.
גָּלָה
This verbal branch gives the root an additional sense of exposure beneath the verse’s endpoint.
gōlāh: Exile or deportation.
גּוֹלָה
This noun names the displacement that ends the dwelling described in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Scripture attributes victory and possession to God while leaving battle’s bodily and territorial consequences visible.
And all this assembly shall perceive that the LORD does not deliver with sword and spear; for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hands.And he said, Hear and respond, all Judah, and you who settle in Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat. Thus says the LORD to you, Do not fear, nor be shattered from the face of this great multitude, for the war is not yours, but God's.For they did not take hold of the land by their sword, and their own arm did not deliver them; but your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you took pleasure in them.THE THREAD
And he said, Hear and respond, all Judah, and you who settle in Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat. Thus says the LORD to you, Do not fear, nor be shattered from the face of this great multitude, for the war is not yours, but God's.Both passages use מִלְחָמָה (milḥāmāh, battle or war) and assign the struggle to God. Here that claim stands beside many slain and a dwelling that lasts only until captivity.
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