What Does 2 Chronicles 23:16 Mean?
And Jehoiada cut a covenant between him, and between all the people, and between the king, that they would be the LORD's people.
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 Jehoiada made a covenant between him, and between all the people, and between the king, that they should be the LORD’s people.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb behind “made” means “cut,” and the king stands inside the same marked belonging to the LORD as the people.
THE MEANING
Jehoiada, the people, and the king are joined in one covenant identity as the LORD’s people. The reader meets a belonging that includes public power: the ruler stands inside the bond with everyone else.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The ruler stands beyond the allegiance binding the people; this verse places him inside the same bond.
THE ROOT
וַיִּכְרֹת
wayyikhrōt
GROWS FROM
כרת
cut, cut off, sever
“cut a covenant” in this verse is wayyikhrōt. The Hebrew says Jehoiada “cut” a covenant, giving the bond a marked edge and weight. The verse’s covenant language binds the king and the people in a shared belonging to the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: cut a covenant; karat means “cut,” and berit means “covenant”
כָּרַת בְּרִית
This is the Hebrew expression beneath “made a covenant” here; its verb presents the bond as a decisive, marked commitment.
keritut: divorce, or a certificate of divorce
כְּרִיתוּת
This branch carries the root’s severing sense, making the covenant’s marked bond of belonging more visible.
הַמֶּלֶךְ
hammelekh
GROWS FROM
מלך
reign, rule
King, reign, and kingship grow from the same three consonants. By including the king in the covenant, the verse places royal authority inside the shared allegiance to the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
malakh: to reign, to rule
מָלַךְ
The king’s role is bound to the covenant rather than standing outside it.
malkhut: kingship, kingdom
מַלְכוּת
The root links the king in this verse to the authority he carries, which is included in the covenant bond.
יְהוֹיָדָע
Yehoyada
GROWS FROM
ידע
know, perceive through encounter
Jehoiada joins יהוה (YHWH, the LORD) with יָדַע (yada, to know or perceive): “the LORD knows.” The name gives the covenant-maker a nature tied to knowing, while the covenant makes belonging public.
ALSO GROWS
yada: know, perceive through encounter
יָדַע
This root gives the name Jehoiada its knowing element.
daʿat: knowledge, understanding
דַּעַת
This noun shares the knowing root and echoes the relational knowledge carried in Jehoiada’s name.
THE PATTERN
Covenant gathers people across ranks into one shared belonging to God.
And I will make my covenant stand between me and you, and your seed after you in their generations, for a covenant of the ages, to be God to you and to your seed after you.But this is the covenant I will cut with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will set my instruction within them, and write it upon their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not been shown compassion, but now you have been shown compassion.THE THREAD
On that day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.Genesis uses the same כרת (karat, “cut”) verb rendered “made” here, linking the two covenants through the act of cutting. There the bond reaches Abram and his seed; here the king and the whole people enter one shared belonging to the LORD.
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