What Does 2 Chronicles 14:1 Mean?
So Abijah lay down with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David, and Asa his son reigned in his place. In his days the land lay still ten years.
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
So Abijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David: and Asa his son reigned in his stead. In his days the land was quiet ten years.THE KEY
The land itself is undisturbed: the ten years name a shared condition of relief.
THE MEANING
The verse holds succession and calm together: a change of rule can coincide with an undisturbed land. The quiet receives a duration, ten years, so relief is real and measurable without being called permanent.
THE ROOT
שָׁקְטָה
shaqetah
GROWS FROM
שקט
To be quiet, undisturbed, or at rest.
“lay still” in this verse is shaqetah. English “quiet” can suggest only low sound; this root also names being free from disturbance. The land itself is the subject, so the verse describes public relief lasting a named span.
ALSO GROWS
shaqetah: Was quiet, undisturbed, or at rest.
שָׁקְטָה
This is the form used here of the land, making the territory itself the one experiencing the respite.
sheqet: Quietness or stillness; a related noun used in Isaiah 32:17.
שֶׁקֶט
The related noun names quiet as a condition, deepening the verse’s description of an undisturbed land.
THE PATTERN
Relief is a lived condition with a duration, experienced by a land or by a burdened person.
And the land lay still forty years. And Othniel the son of Kenaz died.The whole earth rests and is still, and they burst into song.Come to me, all you who toil and have been loaded down, and I will give you rest.THE THREAD
The whole earth rests and is still, and they burst into song.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew root for “at rest” and “quiet,” then says the earth breaks into singing. Quiet here names a condition free from disturbance, with room for expression to emerge.
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