What Does 2 Chronicles 23:5 Mean?
And a third part shall be at the king's house, and a third part at the gate of the foundation, and all the people shall be in the courts of the house of 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 a third part shall be at the king’s house; and a third part at the gate of the foundation: and all the people shall be in the courts of the house of the LORD.THE KEY
The king’s safety is distributed across a whole structure: his house, the gate tied to its foundation, and the courts filled with people.
THE MEANING
One third stands at the king’s house, another at the foundation gate, and all the people fill the courts of the LORD’s house. The arrangement spreads watch across ruler, threshold, and assembly, keeping the whole center in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that the ruler’s immediate presence alone is enough to secure the center.
THE ROOT
הַיְסוֹד
ha-yesod
GROWS FROM
יסד
To set in place, establish, or lay a foundation.
The noun comes from a verb meaning to establish: a foundation is what has been set in place. The gate’s name links this threshold to the structure’s established base, while the king’s house and the people’s courts complete the arrangement around it.
ALSO GROWS
yāsad: To establish, set in place, or lay a foundation.
יָסַד
The verb behind “foundation” connects the gate’s name with the act of making something firm.
môsād: A foundation or established base.
מוֹסָד
This related noun makes the base itself visible in the verse’s placement of a watch at the foundation gate.
THE PATTERN
A shared center is held through distinct placements, with each part occupying its assigned place.
And a third part shall be at the gate of Sur, and a third part at the gate behind the runners; so shall you keep the watch of the house, that none break through it.Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own banner, with the signs of their father's house, facing the tent of meeting, round about, shall they pitch.But now God has set the limbs, each one of them, in the body, as he willed.THE THREAD
Where were you when I laid the footings of the earth? Declare it, if you have discernment.The word “laid” comes from the same יסד (yāsad), meaning “to establish,” as “foundation” in this verse. Here the root names a gate in a guarded structure; in Job it names the establishing of the earth’s foundations.
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