What Does 2 Chronicles 24:3 Mean?
And Jehoiada took for him two wives, and he brought forth sons and daughters.
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 took for him two wives; and he begat sons and daughters.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for taking a wife also means receiving, tying the household’s beginning to the act of taking someone into a shared life.
THE MEANING
The verse holds two wives and sons and daughters in one line: a household is formed, and life extends into a future beyond the person at its center. That generative movement remains visible in the verse’s full, plural household.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקַּח
vayyiqqaḥ
GROWS FROM
לקח
Take, receive, acquire.
“took” in this verse is vayyiqqaḥ. The everyday verb לקח (laqach), “take” or “receive,” is also used in the phrase “take a wife” to mean marry. Here, the household begins with that act of taking someone into relationship.
ALSO GROWS
laqach le’ishah: Take as a wife; marry.
לָקַח לְאִשָּׁה
This is the Hebrew expression behind the verse’s “took ... two wives,” where the verb of taking carries the marital sense.
leqaḥ: Instruction, teaching.
לֶקַח
The same root appears in a word for instruction, extending the family of meanings to what is received or learned.
וַיּוֹלֶד
vayoled
GROWS FROM
ילד
Give birth, bear, beget.
“brought forth” in this verse is vayoled. The root ילד (yalad) gathers begetting, children, and generations under one seed. The sons and daughters in this line point beyond a birth count to life continuing as a lineage.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child.
יֶלֶד
The noun “child” shares the root of the act translated “begat.”
toledot: Generations, descendants; family origins.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch turns the root’s single act of begetting toward the continuing story of a family.
יְהוֹיָדָע
Yehoyada
GROWS FROM
ידע
Know, recognize, perceive through encounter; the name means “YHWH knows.”
Jehoiada’s name carries knowing as nature: “YHWH knows.” That meaning sits inside the name of the one arranging this household.
ALSO GROWS
yodea: One who knows.
יֹדֵעַ
This form makes the root’s knowing explicit in a person, echoing the nature compressed in Jehoiada’s name.
da’at: Knowledge, understanding.
דַּעַת
The noun preserves the same root in the form of knowing itself.
THE PATTERN
Scripture shows household life opening into a future through the arrival of children.
So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife. And when he went in to her, the LORD gave her to conceive, and she bore a son.Look, children are the LORD's portion; and the fruit of the womb is a wage.And he did not know her until she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus.THE THREAD
And Lamech took to himself two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.Genesis uses the same Hebrew verb לקח (laqach) in its line about taking two wives. The shared wording makes the root of “took” audible here, where the same household-forming act is immediately followed by sons and daughters.
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