What Does 2 Chronicles 20:15 Mean?
And he said, Hear and respond, all Judah, and you who settle in Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat. Thus says the LORD to you, Do not fear, nor be shattered from the face of this great multitude, for the war is not yours, but God's.
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 he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the LORD unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s.THE KEY
The verse separates the multitude’s roar from the battle’s ownership: a threat’s size does not make you the one who must fight.
THE MEANING
When a threat gathers into a crowd too large to face, you hear this declaration at the point where fear rises: the battle is God’s. The multitude remains real, but its size does not decide who owns the fight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that because a threat confronts you, the fight must be yours to control. The verse separates facing danger from owning its battle.
THE ROOT
מִלְחָמָה
milḥāmāh
GROWS FROM
לחם
l-ḥ-m
to fight, wage war
The Hebrew noun for “battle” shares its root with the verb “fight.” English names who owns the battle; the Hebrew also echoes the act of fighting within the word itself.
ALSO GROWS
yillāḥēm: he will fight
יִלָּחֵם
This verb uses the same root in Exodus 14:14, where the LORD is the one who fights for you.
lāḥam: to fight, wage war
לָחַם
The base verb makes clear that battle and fighting grow from the same word-root.
הָמוֹן
hāmôn
GROWS FROM
המה
h-m-h
to roar, murmur, or be in commotion
The Hebrew word for “multitude” carries the sense of noise and tumult as well as number. What overwhelms you can feel like a roar, but its noise does not make it the owner of the battle.
ALSO GROWS
hāmāh: to roar, murmur, or surge in sound
הָמָה
This verb reveals the commotion carried inside the word for multitude.
hāmôn: multitude, crowd, noise
הָמוֹן
The noun can describe both a large gathering and the sound or tumult it makes.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
š-l-m
wholeness, completeness
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim carries shalom, wholeness, in its name. The declaration is spoken in the city of wholeness while a multitude threatens; the threat does not get to define the people’s nature.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: wholeness
שָׁלוֹם
This word names the wholeness carried in Yerushalayim’s name.
shalēm: whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the name’s association with wholeness explicit.
THE PATTERN
A visible threat can remain while the decisive fight belongs to God.
The LORD will fight for you, and you will hold your tongue.For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to deliver you.What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?THE THREAD
The LORD will fight for you, and you will hold your tongue.The Hebrew word for “fight,” יִלָּחֵם (yillāḥēm), grows from the same root, לחם (l-ḥ-m), as “battle” here. Exodus makes the connection concrete: the LORD is the one fighting for you, just as this verse names the battle as God’s.
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