What Does 2 Chronicles 17:11 Mean?
Also some of the Philistines brought Jehoshaphat gifts, and a load of silver; and the Arabians brought him flocks, seven thousand and seven hundred rams, and seven thousand and seven hundred he-goats.
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
Also some of the Philistines brought Jehoshaphat presents, and tribute silver; and the Arabians brought him flocks, seven thousand and seven hundred rams, and seven thousand and seven hundred he goats.THE KEY
The verse places Yehoshaphat (יְהוֹשָׁפָט, “YHWH judges”) beside מַשָּׂא (massa, “tribute”), from נשא (nasa, “carry”), so abundance arrives as weight borne toward a ruler named for judgment.
THE MEANING
Provision in your life can arrive from beyond its boundaries in distinct forms: a gift, a due borne as tribute, and herds counted in abundance. At the center stands Yehoshaphat (יְהוֹשָׁפָט, “YHWH judges”), placing material increase beside the character of the rule receiving it.
THE ROOT
מַשָּׂא
massa
GROWS FROM
נשא
nasa
To lift, carry, or bear.
“a load of silver” in this verse is massa. מַשָּׂא (massa) names tribute as a load borne. The same root can describe one raised to authority and what is borne away, so English “tribute” hides a family of images linking weight, rule, and release.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: To lift, carry, or bear.
נָשָׂא
This verb is the seed behind massa: tribute is pictured as something carried.
nasi: A leader or prince, associated with being raised up.
נָשִׂיא
The lifted-up ruler stands beside the load carried toward him in this verse.
nose avon: Bearing crookedness, with the idiomatic sense of lifting it away or releasing it.
נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן
The same root that gives tribute its image of a burden can also describe crookedness being borne away.
יְהוֹשָׁפָט
Yehoshaphat
GROWS FROM
שפט
shaphat
To judge or decide.
“Jehoshaphat” in this verse is Yehoshaphat. Yehoshaphat combines יהו (Yeho-, a form of YHWH’s name) with שָׁפַט (shaphat, “judge”), giving the sense “YHWH judges.” The name makes judgment the defining nature at the center of the gifts and tribute.
ALSO GROWS
shaphat: To judge or decide.
שָׁפַט
This verb supplies the name’s governing idea: judgment.
mishpat: Judgment, justice, or right order.
מִשְׁפָּט
This branch carries judgment from an act into the order by which a community is governed.
THE PATTERN
The authority of a center becomes visible when distant peoples bring their wealth toward it.
And they brought every man his gift, vessels of silver and vessels of gold, and garments, and weapons, and spices, horses, and mules, a portion year by year.A flood of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah. All from Sheba shall come, carrying gold and frankincense, and they shall proclaim the praises of the LORD.And when they had entered the house, they perceived the young child with Mary his mother, and fell to the ground and bowed down before him. And when they had opened their treasures, they brought him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.THE THREAD
Surely he has borne our sicknesses, and carried our wounds. Yet we reckoned him struck, beaten by God, and bowed low.מַשָּׂא (massa, “tribute” or “load”) comes from נשא (nasa, “carry, bear”), and that same root appears in Isaiah’s “borne our griefs.” The shared image places a public load carried toward a ruler beside grief borne for the reader, revealing a connection English words conceal.
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