What Does 2 Chronicles 19:2 Mean?
And Jehu the son of Hanani, the one who sees, went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Should you help the wicked, and love those who hate the LORD? Therefore the burning of anger is upon you from the face of the LORD.
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 Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD.THE KEY
The verse exposes support as allegiance: the hand that strengthens those who oppose the LORD joins the relationship it claims only to help.
THE MEANING
This verse names a living contradiction: the reader can lend strength to what opposes the LORD while binding affection to those who hate him. It presents that alignment as drawing the LORD’s wrath, not as a neutral act of kindness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that support for the LORD’s opposition leaves one’s own allegiance untouched.
THE ROOT
לַעְזֹר
la'azor
GROWS FROM
עזר
To aid, support, or come to another’s help.
The Hebrew word names an act of support: the helper lends strength to someone. Here, that support is bound to the next phrase, so the verse makes help part of a relationship rather than a detached good deed.
ALSO GROWS
ezer: Help or aid.
עֵזֶר
This noun shows the same root naming the support given to someone; in this verse, the question is who receives that support.
ezrah: Assistance or help.
עֶזְרָה
This branch keeps the focus on aid as something that strengthens another, sharpening the verse’s question about where the reader’s strength goes.
לְשֹׂנְאֵי
lesonei
GROWS FROM
שׂנא
To hate or hold in strong opposition.
The verse describes people by their opposition to the LORD, then places the king’s love toward them beside that opposition. The pairing makes affection consequential: it enters the very relationship the word “hate” names.
ALSO GROWS
sone: One who hates or opposes.
שֹׂנֵא
The verse uses this form for those whose defining relation is opposition to the LORD.
sin'ah: Hatred or hostility.
שִׂנְאָה
This noun shows the same root describing the force of that opposition, giving weight to the warning about loving those who hold it.
לָרָשָׁע
la-rasha
GROWS FROM
רשע
To be wicked or guilty; wrongdoing marked as culpable.
The word identifies the person Jehoshaphat is being asked about as wicked, not merely as imperfect. Beside “hate the LORD,” it frames the help in this verse as aid given into culpable opposition.
ALSO GROWS
rasha: A wicked or guilty person.
רָשָׁע
This is the person named in the verse’s question about whom the king helps.
resha: Wickedness or guilt.
רֶשַׁע
This noun names the wrongdoing associated with the person receiving support, clarifying the moral weight of the question.
THE PATTERN
Giving your strength or allegiance to what opposes God entangles your own standing with that opposition.
Flourishing is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of those who miss the mark, nor sit in the seat of the scoffers.No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will hold fast to one and look down on the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.You adulterers and adulteresses, have you not seen that the friendship of the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore desires to be a friend of the world stands as an enemy of God.THE THREAD
He repays those who hate him to their faces, to make them perish. He does not linger with the one who hates him; he repays him to his face.“Hate” here comes from the same Hebrew root, שׂנא (sane), as “them that hate the LORD” in the current verse. The shared root makes the opposition explicit, sharpening the rebuke against lending support and affection into that relationship.
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