What Does 2 Chronicles 25:13 Mean?
But the soldiers of the army which Amaziah sent back, so that they would not go with him to battle, fell upon the cities of Judah, from Samaria even to Bethhoron, and struck three thousand of them, and took much spoil.
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
But the soldiers of the army which Amaziah sent back, that they should not go with him to battle, fell upon the cities of Judah, from Samaria even unto Beth-horon, and smote three thousand of them, and took much spoil.THE KEY
Sending the soldiers back from one battle does not end their violence; it shifts onto Judah’s towns.
THE MEANING
The verse keeps the cost of redirected violence in view: the soldiers fall upon Judah’s towns, kill three thousand people, and take their goods. The threat sent away from one battlefield becomes a danger to people nearby.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that sending a threat away from one conflict makes everyone else safe.
THE ROOT
הֵשִׁיב
hēshîv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
Turn, return, or cause to return.
The verb translated “sent back” carries the movement of turning or returning. Here, that movement does not mean the violence has ended: the soldiers are sent back from the battle, then attack Judah’s towns.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To turn or return.
שׁוּב
It is the root movement behind the soldiers being sent back.
teshuvah: Return or turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This branch makes the root’s central idea of turning visible as a noun.
THE PATTERN
Violence carried into a community can turn its people against one another.
And Cain said to Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.But if you bite and devour one another, watch that you are not used up by one another.From where do wars and battles come among you? Do they not come from here, from your pleasures that wage war in your limbs?THE THREAD
Turn back, Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled in your crookedness.The word “return” in Hosea shares the root שׁוּב (shuv) with “sent back” here. The root names a movement whose direction matters: in Chronicles the soldiers are sent back from battle, while Hosea speaks of return toward the LORD.
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