What Does 2 Chronicles 26:14 Mean?
And Uzziah set firm for them, throughout all the host, shields and spears and helmets and coats of mail and bows and slings to hurl stones.
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 Uzziah prepared for them throughout all the host shields, and spears, and helmets, and habergeons, and bows, and slings to cast stones.THE KEY
The word translated “prepared” carries the sense of setting something firmly in place, making readiness a material condition shared across the whole force.
THE MEANING
You meet protection here as something tangible and distributed: shields and armor cover bodies, while spears, bows, and slings make violence possible at close and long range. The verse holds the scene plainly: this preparation guards bodies and equips them to harm.
THE ROOT
וַיָּכֶן
wayyāḵēn
GROWS FROM
כון
To be firm or established; in a causative form, to set in place or prepare.
“set firm” in this verse is wayyāḵēn. The verb comes from כון (kun), whose basic sense is being firm or established. The same root can describe a fixed heart or an established place, so “prepared” carries the sense of readiness given a settled form.
ALSO GROWS
nakhon: Established, firm, or ready.
נָכוֹן
Psalm 112:7 uses this form for a heart that is “fixed,” showing that the root can describe inward steadiness as well as outward preparation.
māḵōn: An established place, dwelling, or foundation.
מָכוֹן
Exodus 15:17 uses this word for a place prepared as a dwelling, extending the root’s sense of setting something firmly in place.
THE PATTERN
Readiness takes durable form when what is needed is prepared and placed within reach before the moment of need.
The horse is readied for the day of battle, but deliverance is of the LORD.They who built on the wall, and they who bore burdens, with those who lifted the load, every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand gripped a weapon.But set apart the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you for a word about the hope within you, with gentleness and fear.THE THREAD
He does not fear evil report; his heart is set firm, leaning his weight on the LORD.The same root appears in “fixed” as נָכוֹן (nakhon, established or steady) and in Uzziah’s “prepared” as וַיָּכֶן (wayyāḵēn, he set in place or prepared). The root links equipment arranged into readiness with a heart established in trust, while each verse gives readiness a different form.
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