What Does 2 Chronicles 2:10 Mean?
And look, I will give to your servants, the cutters of timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.
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, behold, I will give to thy servants, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.THE KEY
The workers are inside the building plan: their food is measured out alongside the timber work, before the structure takes shape.
THE MEANING
The people cutting timber appear as embodied workers: grain, barley, wine, and oil are named for them. Preparing a dwelling and sustaining the people who prepare it occupy the same frame, in explicit measures.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the work can be honored while the workers’ sustenance remains incidental.
THE ROOT
כֹּרְתֵי
kōretê
GROWS FROM
כרת
k-r-t
to cut, cut down, or cut off
The word for the timber cutters comes from כרת (karat), meaning to cut. The same root appears in כָּרַת בְּרִית (karat berit), literally “cut a covenant,” so the timber work echoes Scripture’s language for covenant-making, a connection the English smooths over.
ALSO GROWS
karat: to cut down or cut off
כָּרַת
This is the concrete action named in the timber work.
karat berit: to cut a covenant
כָּרַת בְּרִית
The same root links cutting with the language of covenant-making.
נֹתֵן
nōtēn
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
to give, set, or place
The provision is expressed with a root that means give, set, or place, making the supplies concrete things set out for the workers. Its branch מַתָּנָה (mattanah), meaning “gift,” shares the seed of giving with what is given.
ALSO GROWS
natan: to give, set, or place
נָתַן
This verb names the act of providing the supplies.
mattanah: gift
מַתָּנָה
The related noun shows how the root of giving also names what is given.
THE PATTERN
The work includes the sustenance of the workers who carry it.
You shall not muzzle the ox while he treads out the grain.And remain in that same house, eating and drinking what they give, for the worker is worthy of his pay. Do not step from house to house.THE THREAD
On that day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.The timber phrase uses כֹּרְתֵי (kōretê), “cutters,” from כרת (karat), “cut”; Genesis uses that same root in כָּרַת בְּרִית (karat berit), “cut a covenant,” rendered “made a covenant” in the KJV. The shared verb lets the timber work echo the language of covenant-making.
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