What Does 2 Chronicles 1:13 Mean?
Then Solomon came to Jerusalem from the high place that was at Gibeon, from before the tent of meeting, and reigned over 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
Then Solomon came from his journey to the high place that was at Gibeon to Jerusalem, from before the tabernacle of the congregation, and reigned over Israel.THE KEY
The encounter before the tabernacle does not end there; it moves toward Jerusalem, whose name carries wholeness, and takes form as rule.
THE MEANING
Solomon moves from the place of meeting to Jerusalem, and there his reign comes into view. The verse holds encounter, destination, and governance in one sequence, with wholeness echoing in the name of the city where he rules.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The sacred is only what happens inside a sanctuary.
THE ROOT
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The city-name carries the same seed as שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness) and שָׁלֵם (shalem, whole or complete). Its wholeness echoes the movement from the place of encounter to the place where Solomon’s reign takes shape.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being
שָׁלוֹם
This is the wholeness that the name Jerusalem carries into the verse’s destination.
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the city’s name resonate with completeness as Solomon’s rule comes into view.
וַיִּמְלֹךְ
vayyimlokh
GROWS FROM
מלך
m-l-k
To rule as king.
“Reigned” shares one seed with “king” and “kingdom,” so ruler, act of ruling, and realm belong to one word-family. The verse’s final movement carries what begins before the meeting tent into a public order over Israel.
ALSO GROWS
melekh: King
מֶלֶךְ
The person who rules shares the same root as the act of reigning.
mamlakhah: Kingdom, realm
מַמְלָכָה
The realm also grows from this root, joining Solomon’s rule to the people and land it orders.
THE PATTERN
The sacred meeting place opens into communal life, where presence takes shared form.
And let them make me a set-apart place, that I may pitch my tent among them.Jerusalem is built as a city bound together.Have you not seen that you are God's temple, and that the breath of God dwells in you?THE THREAD
Ask for the wholeness of Jerusalem; those who love you are at ease.The word translated “peace” is שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness), from the same root echoed in Yerushalayim. Chronicles places Solomon’s reign in that city; this verse speaks wholeness over the city itself.
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