What Does 2 Chronicles 18:21 Mean?
And he said, I will go out and be a lying breath in the mouth of all his prophets. And the LORD said, You will coax him and also prevail; go out and do so.
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, I will go out, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said, Thou shalt entice him, and thou shalt also prevail: go out, and do even so.THE KEY
The verse puts falsehood inside the very breath and mouths trusted to speak for God, then shows it authorized to prevail.
THE MEANING
This verse names a frightening pattern that remains legible now: falsehood can occupy trusted voices and persuade with real force. The Hebrew word ruach (רוּחַ, breath or wind) makes the lie something voiced and carried through the prophets’ mouths, not merely an idea. The LORD’s command to entice and prevail remains part of the verse’s hard claim; its language leaves that tension exposed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A voice that speaks with spiritual authority must therefore be telling the truth.
THE ROOT
רוּחַ
rûaḥ
GROWS FROM
ר־ו־ח
r-w-ḥ
Breath or wind; moving air, and by extension an animating presence.
The KJV’s “spirit” is ruach (רוּחַ, breath or wind), a word that holds these senses together. Here, falsehood becomes breath in the prophets’ mouths: it takes voice and travels through speech.
ALSO GROWS
wind: Moving air.
רוּחַ
The same Hebrew word can name the unseen movement of air and the breath that carries a spoken message.
breath: The air drawn in and released.
רוּחַ
In this verse, the falsehood is carried as breath through the mouths of the prophets.
שֶׁקֶר
sheqer
GROWS FROM
ש־ק־ר
š-q-r
Falsehood; acting or speaking falsely.
“lying” in this verse is sheqer. The Hebrew phrase is ruach sheqer (רוּחַ שֶׁקֶר, breath of falsehood). Falsehood is not merely an inaccurate statement here: it is the content animating the prophets’ speech.
ALSO GROWS
shāqar: To lie or act falsely.
שָׁקַר
The verb makes falsehood an action being carried out, not only a mistaken idea.
sheqer: A lie or falsehood.
שֶׁקֶר
This noun names what fills the prophetic mouths in the verse.
פַּתֵּה
pattēh
GROWS FROM
פ־ת־ה
p-t-h
To be open; in the intensive form, to persuade, entice, or deceive.
“coax” in this verse is pattēh. The command to entice uses the root pathah (פתה, persuade or entice), which also gives a word for the simple or easily persuaded person. The verse links the lie’s speech to its effect: it opens a hearer to influence, and the persuasion succeeds.
ALSO GROWS
pĕtî: A simple or naive person, easily persuaded.
פֶּתִי
This related word brings out the hearer’s openness to influence in the act of persuasion.
pātâ: To persuade, entice, or deceive.
פָּתָה
This is the root’s verbal sense behind the command to entice the king.
THE PATTERN
Falsehood gains force when it speaks through trusted voices and finds a hearer it can persuade.
Thus says the LORD of hosts, Do not hear and respond to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they make you vapor. They speak a sight of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.For false anointed ones will rise, and false prophets, and they will give great signs and wonders, so that, if it were possible, even the picked-out ones are led off the path.And because of this, God will send them a working of wandering, so that they might lean their weight on the lie.THE THREAD
And if the prophet is lured and speaks a word, I the LORD have lured that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will wipe him out from the midst of my people Israel.The Hebrew translated “deceived” is a form of פתה (pātâ, to persuade or entice), the same root as “entice” here. What this verse calls an assigned act of persuasion, Ezekiel names as deception in the prophet, leaving the agency of God just as stark.
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