What Does 2 Chronicles 10:9 Mean?
And he said to them, What counsel do you give us, that we may return an answer to this people, who spoke to me, saying, Lighten the yoke your father set upon us?
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 he said unto them, What advice give ye that we may return answer to this people, which have spoken to me, saying, Ease somewhat the yoke that thy father did put upon us?THE KEY
The people ask for a lighter yoke, while the king first turns their plea into a question about what to say back.
THE MEANING
A burden can be laid on you, and a plea to make it lighter can be met first with deliberation about the reply. The yoke remains in place while the king asks what to say, holding the people’s weight and his choice in the same frame.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that naming a burden has already changed it: the people have made their request, and the yoke is still there.
THE ROOT
הָקֵל
haqel
GROWS FROM
קלל
q-l-l
To be light or to make something light, slight, or of little weight.
“lighten” in this verse is haqel. The request is literally for the yoke to be made lighter; it asks for a change in its weight, not for the yoke to vanish. This root can also mean to treat something lightly, so the verse holds a sharp distinction between easing the burden and dismissing the plea.
ALSO GROWS
qal: Light in weight or degree; slight.
קַל
This is the quality the people ask the king to give the yoke.
qelalah: A curse or utterance that brings someone low.
קְלָלָה
The same root can move from physical lightness to treating someone or something as of little account; the request calls for relief, not disregard.
נָתַן
natan
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
“set upon us” in this verse is natan. The verse describes the yoke as something the father placed upon the people, not as a weight that belongs to them by nature. The root holds “put” together with “give” and “set,” making the burden an imposed condition that can be addressed by the king’s answer.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: A gift, something given.
מַתָּנָה
It comes from the same root for giving; here that root describes what the father placed on the people, though the yoke itself is a burden.
natun: Given, assigned, or set in place.
נָתוּן
The people describe the yoke as a condition set upon them, which is why they ask the king to change its weight.
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; a word or matter spoken.
“answer, word” in this verse is davar. The Hebrew phrase is to “return a word” to the people, joining the response to the word itself. The verse catches the moment when a reply is being prepared but the requested relief has not yet arrived.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: Spoke or said.
דִּבֵּר
The same root for speech frames both the people’s plea and the king’s coming reply.
davar: A word, statement, or matter.
דָּבָר
The king is deciding what word to send back about the yoke.
THE PATTERN
A yoke is the weight through which authority governs service, and changing or breaking it changes what that service costs.
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not serve them, and I broke the bars of your yoke and made you stand upright.Is this not the fast I have chosen, to open the bonds of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to send the crushed away free, and to tear away every yoke?For my yoke fits well, and my load is light.THE THREAD
Your father made our yoke hard. So now, lighten the hard service of your father, and his heavy yoke that he set upon us, and we will serve you.The parallel request uses the same root קלל (q-l-l, “make light”) for “lighter,” making the requested change a literal reduction of the load. It also says they will serve if the yoke is lightened, revealing relief as the hinge between imposed service and their response.
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