What Does 2 Chronicles 2:16 Mean?
And we will cut timber from Lebanon, as much as you need, and we will bring them to you in rafts by sea to Joppa, and you will bring them up to Jerusalem.
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 we will cut wood out of Lebanon, as much as thou shalt need: and we will bring it to thee in floats by sea to Joppa; and thou shalt carry it up to Jerusalem.THE KEY
The timber’s route is an ascent into Jerusalem, whose name carries the language of wholeness.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you now as a complete movement: timber is cut at its source, floated across the sea, and carried upward to Jerusalem, whose name carries the sense of shalom, wholeness. It names every stage of the arrival: source, water, harbor, ascent, destination. The making of a dwelling takes shape through the work of carrying separate materials into place.
THE ROOT
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
To be whole or complete; the name carries the language of shalom, wholeness.
Jerusalem is more than the destination’s label: its name carries shalom, with a dual ending that evokes twofold wholeness. The wood’s upward journey ends at a place whose name holds the shape of wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
The destination’s name carries the sense of wholeness into the route.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the place-name’s wholeness tangible as a state of completion.
תַּעֲלֶה
ta'aleh
GROWS FROM
עלה
To go up or ascend; in this form, to bring something up.
“bring them up” in this verse is ta'aleh. The Hebrew keeps the upward direction inside the verb, while English carry can sound like movement alone. The same root names an ascent and an offering that goes up, connecting the timber’s physical raising with the language of ascent without equating the timber with a sacrifice.
ALSO GROWS
alah: To go up, ascend.
עָלָה
The verb names the direction of the timber’s journey from Joppa to Jerusalem.
olah: A burnt offering, literally that which goes up.
עֹלָה
The same root links carrying upward with the language of something rising.
נְבִיאֵם
nevi'em
GROWS FROM
בוא
To come or enter; in the causative form, to bring or cause to come.
“bring” in this verse is nevi'em. The Hebrew verb centers the timber’s arrival: it is caused to come to its destination. Ezra 3:7 repeats this root for cedar brought from Lebanon to Joppa, revealing the route as a recurring movement of materials toward a dwelling.
ALSO GROWS
bo: To come, enter.
בּוֹא
The root’s basic movement is arrival, which gives the timber’s journey a clear destination.
hevi: To bring, cause to come.
הֵבִיא
This causative form makes the people’s role in the timber’s arrival explicit.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling takes shape when separate materials or lives are brought into a shared structure.
And let them make me a set-apart place, that I may pitch my tent among them.And the builders of Solomon and the builders of Hiram and the Gebalites built, and they set firm the trees and stone to build the house.You also, as living stones, are built up into a house of breath, a set-apart priesthood, to carry up sacrifices of breath, well received by God through Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
They gave silver also unto the cutters and the carvers, and food, and drink, and oil, unto them of Sidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa, according to the permission they had from Cyrus king of Persia.Ezra 3:7 repeats בוא (bo, to come or enter; in its causative form, to bring) and nearly the same route from Lebanon to Joppa. The repeated movement makes the arrival of materials part of the pattern by which a dwelling takes shape.
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