What Does 2 Chronicles 20:12 Mean?
O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no strength against this great multitude that comes against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.
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
O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee.THE KEY
When strength and the next move are both gone, the prayer still has one thing: eyes turned toward God.
THE MEANING
You ask God to judge the force coming against you while admitting you have no strength to meet it and cannot see what to do. Your eyes remain turned toward God. The verse holds a direct plea for judgment together with your exposed helplessness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that if you cannot act or see a solution, there is no response left; the verse gives your turned attention a place even in that uncertainty.
THE ROOT
עֵינֵינוּ
ʿênênû
GROWS FROM
עין
Eye; the same Hebrew word also names a spring or fountain.
The Hebrew word for “eyes” also carries the sense of a spring or fountain. The prayer ends by turning its sight toward God, its only remaining posture when strength and a plan are absent.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: Eye; also a spring, fountain, or well.
עַיִן
This shared word holds sight and a source of flowing water together, giving “our eyes are upon thee” a sense of more than simply looking.
maʿyan: A spring or fountain.
מַעְיָן
This related form makes the spring sense explicit; the verse closes with sight directed toward God rather than with a claim to know the way forward.
נֵדַע
nēdaʿ
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know or perceive; the word family includes knowing by encounter, not only information.
The speaker says plainly, “we do not know what to do.” The next clause gives no hidden strategy in its place: it turns from the absence of a plan to the direction of the eyes.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: To know or perceive.
יָדַע
This is the verb’s base form; here its negation makes the lack of a clear next step explicit.
daʿat: Knowledge or understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root shows the broader knowing-family behind the speaker’s admission that the way forward is unknown.
THE PATTERN
When the way forward is hidden, scripture locates dependence in where the eyes turn rather than in mastery of the next move.
My eyes are always toward the LORD, for he brings my feet out of the net.Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress; so our eyes look to the LORD our God, until he bends toward us.Fixing our sight on Jesus, the one who goes first and brings our trust to its goal, who for the joy lying before him remained under the cross, looking down on the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.THE THREAD
Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress; so our eyes look to the LORD our God, until he bends toward us.Both verses use עַיִן (ʿayin, eye) for the image of eyes turned toward the LORD. Psalm 123 makes the waiting explicit, opening the present prayer’s final image as a gaze held toward God while help is awaited.
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