What Does 2 Chronicles 20:19 Mean?
And the Levites, of the children of the Kohathites and of the children of the Korhites, rose to praise the LORD God of Israel with a very great voice on high.
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 the Levites, of the children of the Kohathites, and of the children of the Korhites, stood up to praise the LORD God of Israel with a loud voice on high.THE KEY
The people rise into praise, making their shared voice the first outward sign of their response to God.
THE MEANING
When your outcome is still unseen, praise can already take audible, shared form. The Levites rise together and address the LORD as Israel’s God with a great voice; praise is embodied in standing and sounded aloud.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that praise belongs only after the outcome is visible.
THE ROOT
לְהַלֵּל
lehallel
GROWS FROM
הלל
To praise, celebrate, or acclaim.
The word lehallel comes from הלל (halal), whose branches also form a call to praise and a word for a song of praise. Here praise is voiced acclaim, gathering the people into one shared sound.
ALSO GROWS
halelu: Praise!
הַלְלוּ
This imperative from the same root makes praise a call spoken aloud, like the Levites’ great voice.
tehillah: Praise or a song of praise.
תְּהִלָּה
This branch shows how the root can name praise given voice as song.
וַיָּקֻמוּ
wayyaqumu
GROWS FROM
קום
To rise or stand; in a causative form, to raise or establish.
“rose” in this verse is wayyaqumu. The root קום also forms a verb meaning “establish” and a noun for “place.” The people’s rising is the verse’s first visible movement toward praise.
ALSO GROWS
qum: Rise or stand.
קוּם
This is the root’s basic movement, made visible as the Levites rise to praise.
maqom: Place or location.
מָקוֹם
This noun shares the root’s sense of standing and gives the idea of a place where someone stands.
heqim: Raise or establish.
הֵקִים
This causative form carries the movement of rising into the act of setting something in place.
גָּדוֹל
gadol
GROWS FROM
גדל
To grow or become great.
The Hebrew phrase is qol gadol, “a great voice”; גדל also forms words for greatness and a tower. “Loud” names the volume, while “great” preserves the root’s wider sense of magnitude.
ALSO GROWS
gedullah: Greatness or magnitude.
גְּדֻלָּה
This noun shares the root’s sense of greatness and illuminates the description of the voice.
migdal: Tower.
מִגְדָּל
This branch carries the root into something that rises high, echoing the verse’s image of a great voice lifted up.
THE PATTERN
Praise can rise in a full voice while circumstances remain unresolved.
A Psalm of David, when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech; who drove him away, and he departed. I bless the LORD at all times, and his praise is continually in my mouth.In the middle of the night Paul and Silas prayed and sang praise to God, and the prisoners listened to them.Through him, then, let us always carry up a sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.THE THREAD
Let every thing that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.The Hebrew root הָלַל (halal, “to praise or acclaim”) underlies the praise language in both verses. Here the Levites rise into a great voice; Psalm 150 opens that same praise to every breathing thing.
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