What Does 2 Chronicles 20:27 Mean?
Then they turned back, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, with Jehoshaphat at their head, to turn back to Jerusalem with joy, for the LORD had made them rejoice over their enemies.
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
Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat in the forefront of them, to go again to Jerusalem with joy; for the LORD had made them to rejoice over their enemies.THE KEY
The same Hebrew root names both the joy they carry home and the joy the LORD causes in them.
THE MEANING
Your return from opposition is more than getting away: the LORD causes joy within you, and that joy travels with you toward home. The people come back together, so the joy reaches the community. Here, joy is a present sign of release and return.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that joy after conflict must be produced by sheer will: the verse names the LORD as the one who causes it.
THE ROOT
בְּשִׂמְחָה
bəśimḥāh
GROWS FROM
שׂמח
to rejoice; to be glad
“joy / made them rejoice” in this verse is bəśimḥāh. The noun translated “joy” and the causative verb “made them rejoice” grow from the same root. They carry home the very joy the LORD causes in them: it is both their condition and the result of divine action.
ALSO GROWS
śāmaḥ: to rejoice; to be glad
שָׂמַח
The base verb names the action echoed in both forms used in the verse.
śimḥāh: joy; gladness
שִׂמְחָה
This noun names what the people carry as they return, from the same root as the LORD’s action within them.
THE PATTERN
God’s deliverance becomes joy the people share and carry forward.
The LORD has grown great in doing with us, and we were glad.For you shall go out in joy, and be carried forth in wholeness. The mountains and the hills shall burst into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their palms.And may the God of hope fill you with all joy and wholeness in leaning your full weight, so that you may overflow in hope through the power of the Set-Apart Breath.THE THREAD
The ransomed of the LORD turn back and come to Zion with ringing cries, and the joy of the ages is upon their heads. They overtake joy and gladness, and sorrow and groaning flee.Isaiah also describes people returning with joy, using שִׂמְחָה (śimḥāh, “joy”), from the same שׂמח (śāmaḥ, “rejoice; be glad”) root. The shared root makes joy part of what the returning people carry with them.
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