What Does 2 Chronicles 25:23 Mean?
And Joash the king of Israel took Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, at Bethshemesh, and brought him to Jerusalem, and broke through the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate, four hundred forearms.
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 Joash the king of Israel took Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, at Beth-shemesh, and brought him to Jerusalem, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate, four hundred cubits.THE KEY
The captured king is only the beginning of the defeat: Jerusalem’s wall is breached across four hundred cubits.
THE MEANING
A loss can reach beyond the person who falls and break into the boundary shared by a whole people. Jerusalem carries the sound of wholeness, yet the breach makes the city’s vulnerability concrete and extensive.
THE ROOT
וַיִּפְרֹץ
vayifrotz
GROWS FROM
פרץ
P-R-Ṣ
To break through, burst forth, or spread out.
“broke through” in this verse is vayifrotz. The wall is not merely damaged; it is breached by a force that breaks through a boundary. The same root can describe a breach and an expansion, joining rupture and outward movement in one image.
ALSO GROWS
perets: A breach or break-through; also the name Perez.
פֶּרֶץ
This noun makes the wall’s opening a concrete breach, not just general damage.
parats: To break forth or spread abroad.
פָּרַץ
This verb shows the root’s wider range: the force that breaches a wall can also describe expansion beyond a boundary.
יְרוּשָׁלַ͏ִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
Š-L-M
Wholeness, completeness, or being made whole.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The city’s name carries the sound of shalom, wholeness, while the verse describes its wall being opened by force. The name and the breach stand together: wholeness is present as the city’s nature even as its boundary is broken.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness; well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
It brings the city’s name into tension with the breach that exposes it.
shalem: Whole or complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch underscores the wholeness carried in the name as the wall’s integrity is broken.
THE PATTERN
A wall’s breach changes what can cross it, exposing what it protected or ending what it divided.
Come, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be eaten up. I will break through its wall, and it shall be trampled.And they said to me, The remnant that are left from the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem also is broken through, and its gates are burned with fire.For he is our wholeness, the one who made both one and loosed the middle wall of the fence.THE THREAD
And David came to Baal-perazim, and David struck them there, and said, The LORD has broken through my enemies before me, like a breach of waters. Therefore he called the name of that place Baal-perazim, lord of breaches.Both verses use פרץ (parats), meaning to break through or burst forth. In David’s words the force is pictured as water breaking through; here it opens Jerusalem’s wall across a measured stretch.
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