What Does 2 Chronicles 15:5 Mean?
And in those times there was no wholeness for the one who went out, nor for the one who came in, for great tumults were upon all who settle in the lands.
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 in those times there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the countries.THE KEY
The verse measures peace by whether people can leave and return without upheaval swallowing their community.
THE MEANING
Where wholeness is absent, ordinary movement, going out and coming home, becomes uncertain, while upheaval spreads across whole communities. Peace is more than an inward feeling here; it is the shared steadiness that lets daily life hold together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that peace is only a private feeling: when whole communities live in upheaval, peace is absent from the conditions of life as well.
THE ROOT
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
sh-l-m
Be whole or complete; make whole or restore.
English “peace” can sound like quiet; שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness and well-being) carries the sense of life being intact as well. Its root branches reach from being complete to making good what is owed, so the missing peace here is a fracture in shared life, not just a lack of calm.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole, complete, sound
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes visible the wholeness carried within shalom: peace includes life holding together.
shillem: To repay, recompense, or make good
שִׁלֵּם
This branch connects the root with restoring what is owed or unsettled, illuminating peace as a condition in which life is made whole.
THE PATTERN
Wholeness is lived as steadiness through ordinary movement and across communities.
Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed when you go out.The LORD watches over your going out and your coming in, from now and to the ages.Wholeness I leave with you; my wholeness I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be stirred, and do not let it shrink.THE THREAD
Let there be wholeness within your walls, and ease within your palaces.The same word שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness) reaches from a person’s movement to a city’s walls and homes: here it is absent across whole lands, while the psalm speaks of it within the city. The shared root shows peace as a condition of communal life, not only a person’s inward calm.
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