What Does 2 Chronicles 18:6 Mean?
But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here yet a prophet of the LORD, that we might seek from him?
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
But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the LORD besides, that we might enquire of him?THE KEY
Jehoshaphat’s question makes discernment an act of seeking: a chorus of agreement does not itself establish that the LORD has spoken.
THE MEANING
When confident voices around you claim to speak for God, this verse leaves room for a searching question: is there another voice to seek from the LORD? Asking shows that agreement alone does not settle the source of a message.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a message must be God’s because many voices repeat it dissolves here: number and certainty do not establish its source.
THE ROOT
דָּרַשׁ
darash
GROWS FROM
דרש
To seek, inquire after, consult, or investigate.
“seek from him” in this verse is darash. The root behind “enquire” also describes seeking and searching. The question carries more than a request for another prediction: it turns toward the source of the counsel being sought.
ALSO GROWS
doresh: One who seeks or inquires.
דּוֹרֵשׁ
This form makes the active seeker visible in the root’s family, echoing the deliberate question in the verse.
midrash: Exposition or interpretive inquiry.
מִדְרָשׁ
Its connection to darash shows the root extending from asking toward sustained searching for meaning.
יְהוֹשָׁפָט
Yehoshaphat
GROWS FROM
שפט
To judge, decide, or render judgment; the name combines YHWH with this root and is understood as “YHWH judges.”
“Jehoshaphat” in this verse is Yehoshaphat. The name carries the language of judgment into a verse about seeking a prophet of the LORD. It quietly echoes the question of whose judgment is being heard.
ALSO GROWS
shofet: Judge.
שֹׁפֵט
This is a person who exercises judgment, resonating with Jehoshaphat’s name.
mishpat: Judgment, justice, or a legal decision.
מִשְׁפָּט
This branch names the judgment Jehoshaphat’s question seeks from the LORD.
THE PATTERN
A claim to speak from God is weighed through discernment, not assumed true because it sounds certain or gathers agreement.
When the prophet speaks in the nature of the LORD, if the word does not come to be, nor arrive, it is the word the LORD has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it in a boiling over. You shall not cower from him.These were of nobler birth than those in Thessalonica, who received the word with all eagerness of heart, and sifted the writings daily, whether these things held so.Beloved, do not lean your weight on every breath, but test the breaths, whether they come out of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.THE THREAD
But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your living soul.The phrase “if thou seek him” uses the same root, דרש (darash), as “enquire” in Jehoshaphat’s question. The shared root opens inquiry as an act of seeking the LORD, not merely collecting another answer.
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