What Does 2 Chronicles 23:17 Mean?
Then all the people went to the house of Baal, and tore it down, and his altars and his images they broke to pieces, and killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars.
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 all the people went to the house of Baal, and brake it down, and brake his altars and his images in pieces, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars.THE KEY
Baal means “master,” so the crowd tears down the house of a named master and kills his priest before the altars.
THE MEANING
Here, Baal’s worship is dismantled in public: the house comes down, the altars and images are smashed, and Mattan is killed before the altars. The scene joins the destruction of the cult’s objects to the death of its priest.
THE ROOT
בַּעַל
baʿal
GROWS FROM
בעל
To own, possess, or rule; as a noun, master or owner.
English treats Baal mainly as a proper name, while the Hebrew also carries the sense “master” or “owner.” The repeated phrases “house of Baal” and “priest of Baal” keep that claim of mastery audible as the house, altars, and images are destroyed.
ALSO GROWS
baʿal: Master, owner, or husband.
בַּעַל
This is the title within Baal’s name, so mastery is present in the name itself.
baʿal ha-bayit: Master or owner of the house; a household head.
בַּעַל הַבַּיִת
The same word can name a householder, sharpening the force of the phrase “house of Baal.”
שִׁבֵּרוּ
shibberu
GROWS FROM
שבר
To break or shatter.
“broke to pieces” in this verse is shibberu. The verb rendered “in pieces” is distinct from the one rendered “brake it down.” This root also reaches into words for fracture and crashing breakers, so the objects are physically shattered, not merely left behind.
ALSO GROWS
shever: Fracture, break, or ruin.
שֶׁבֶר
The same root carries breaking from a physical fracture into the language of ruin.
mishbar: A breaker or crashing billow.
מִשְׁבָּר
The root also names the force of breaking waves, echoing the forceful smashing of the altars and images.
THE PATTERN
Rival worship is confronted through public acts against its visible forms and, at times, the people who serve it.
But thus shall you do to them. You shall tear down their altars, shatter their standing stones, cut down their upright poles, and burn their hewn images in the fire.And Elijah said to them, Seize the prophets of Baal, and let not one of them slip away. And they took them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slaughtered them there.Many of those who had practiced the meddling arts also brought their scrolls together and burned them before all people; and they counted the price, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.THE THREAD
The LORD is near to those whose heart is broken, and delivers those crushed in breath.The verb rendered “in pieces” here and the word “broken” in this verse share שבר (shavar, to break or shatter). One word-family reaches from smashed images to the fracture of a heart, opening a wider scriptural language of breaking.
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