What Does 2 Chronicles 20:4 Mean?
And Judah gathered together to ask of the LORD, and out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD.
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 Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the LORD: even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD.THE KEY
In Hebrew, asking the LORD for help and seeking the LORD are one act, expressed by the same verb.
THE MEANING
When need gathers people, their request for help and their search for the LORD meet in one shared turning toward God. The verse speaks to need without separating what is asked for from the One being sought.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that prayer is only a request for an outcome: here, asking for help is also seeking the One asked.
THE ROOT
לְבַקֵּשׁ
ləvaqqēš
GROWS FROM
בקש
to seek or request
“ask of” in this verse is ləvaqqēš. The Hebrew uses the same verb both for asking help of the LORD and for seeking the LORD. English can make these sound like separate actions; the repeated root holds the request and the search together.
ALSO GROWS
biqqēsh: he sought; he requested
בִּקֵּשׁ
This verb form carries both senses together, as in the verse’s movement from asking help to seeking the LORD.
mevaqqēsh: one who seeks; a seeker
מְבַקֵּשׁ
The same root can describe the person seeking, linking the request to an ongoing orientation toward the one sought.
THE PATTERN
Shared need gathers people into a shared turning toward God.
O grow the LORD great with me, and let us lift up his name together.Blow the ram's horn in Zion, set apart a fast, call a restrained assembly.And when they heard this, they lifted up their voice to God with one passion and said, "Master, you are God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them."THE THREAD
Seek the LORD and his strength; search for his face continually.The repeated “seek” in this verse comes from the same Hebrew root, בקשׁ, that joins asking for help with seeking the LORD in 2 Chronicles 20:4. Here, seeking reaches toward the LORD’s strength and face, opening what that shared act contains.
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