What Does 2 Chronicles 14:3 Mean?
For he took away the altars of the foreign gods, and the high places, and broke the standing stones, and cut down the Asherah poles.
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 he took away the altars of the strange gods, and the high places, and brake down the images, and cut down the groves:THE KEY
The verse’s “images” are standing pillars: renewal means the structures of rival devotion can be made to fall.
THE MEANING
Devotion is not abstract: a rival allegiance keeps its place through structures and objects that make it seem fixed. The verse shows renewal as removal, breaking, and cutting down; what once claimed a place loses its standing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that renewal comes only from adding new practices while every rival structure remains untouched.
THE ROOT
מַצֵּבוֹת
matzevot
GROWS FROM
נ־צ־ב
n-ts-b
To stand, take one’s position, or be stationed.
“standing stones” in this verse is matzevot. The word rendered “images” refers to standing pillars, from a root about standing or being stationed. The removal reaches the fixed place rival devotion occupies: what has been set upright can be taken down, and what seemed established can lose its station.
ALSO GROWS
natsav: To stand or take one’s position.
נָצַב
The verb shares the root of the pillars, linking the objects to what stands in a fixed place.
matzav: A position or station.
מַצָּב
This branch shows how the root can describe an established place, the kind of foothold the verse depicts being removed.
וַיְשַׁבֵּר
wayeshabber
GROWS FROM
ש־ב־ר
sh-b-r
To break or shatter.
“broke” in this verse is wayeshabber. This verb describes more than neglect: the pillars are broken. The same root can name a fracture or something broken, making the act a direct undoing of what had been kept intact.
ALSO GROWS
shever: A break, fracture, or breach.
שֶׁבֶר
This noun makes visible the rupture contained in the act of breaking down the objects.
nishbar: Broken or shattered.
נִשְׁבָּר
This form carries the same root into a state of brokenness, showing that the verse’s action changes the object’s condition.
הַנֵּכָר
hanēkār
GROWS FROM
נ־כ־ר
n-k-r
To recognize or mark as different, including as foreign.
“Strange” here carries the sense of foreign allegiance, not merely something unusual. The same root can describe recognition, connecting the foreign gods with what is identified as belonging to another sphere.
ALSO GROWS
nokhri: A foreigner or outsider.
נָכְרִי
This branch makes the sense of foreignness in “strange gods” explicit.
hikkir: To recognize or identify.
הִכִּיר
This branch shows the root’s connection to distinguishing one thing from another.
THE PATTERN
Rival allegiances lose their hold as the structures that sustain them are put away and cast down.
And Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, If you turn back to the LORD with all your hearts, then turn aside the foreign gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and set your hearts firm toward the LORD, and serve him alone; and he will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.He removed the high places, broke the standing stones, cut down the Asherah poles, and broke to pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the children of Israel made smoke rise to it. And he called it Nehushtan, the bronze thing.Pulling down reckonings, and every height lifted up against the knowing of God, and leading every thought captive to the hearing and response of the Anointed One.THE THREAD
He removed the high places, broke the standing stones, cut down the Asherah poles, and broke to pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the children of Israel made smoke rise to it. And he called it Nehushtan, the bronze thing.The same three actions repeat: remove, break, and cut down. The detail about the bronze serpent sharpens the connection: even an object once associated with Moses can become a rival when it receives incense.
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