What Does 2 Chronicles 26:6 Mean?
And he went forth and warred against the Philistines, and broke through the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod, and built cities about Ashdod, and among the Philistines.
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 he went forth and warred against the Philistines, and brake down the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod, and built cities about Ashdod, and among the Philistines.THE KEY
A breach can be the first act of occupation: new cities take root where the walls have been forced open.
THE MEANING
Power moves in sequence here: attack, breach, then settlement in and around Philistine territory. The building extends the campaign’s control, so construction remains bound to the violence that opens the space.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A broken wall does not always free the people behind it; here, the breach makes room for a conqueror to extend his control.
THE ROOT
וַיִּפְרֹץ
vayiprotz
GROWS FROM
פרץ
parats
Break through, burst open; by extension, spread or expand.
“broke through” in this verse is vayiprotz. The root פרץ (parats, “break through” or “breach”) carries the force of bursting through an enclosure. Its sense of spreading outward connects the broken walls to the settlements that follow: the opening becomes expansion into the space beyond it.
ALSO GROWS
perets: A breach or opening in a wall.
פֶּרֶץ
The same root names an opening that can later be repaired, as in Isaiah’s “repairer of the breach.”
parats: Break through, burst outward, spread.
פָּרַץ
In Genesis 28:14, the same root describes descendants spreading in every direction, carrying the sense of a breakthrough into expansion.
וַיִּבֶן
wayyiven
GROWS FROM
בנה
banah
Build, establish.
“built” in this verse is wayyiven. The verb בנה (banah, “build”) answers the breach with a new foothold: the campaign does not stop at tearing down walls but establishes cities in the territory it has entered. Jabneh’s name, יַבְנֶה (Yabneh, “he builds”), is commonly connected to this same root, so the place list itself echoes the building that follows.
ALSO GROWS
binyan: A building or structure.
בִּנְיָן
It makes the second movement concrete: after the walls fall, structures are established in the opened territory.
Yabneh: A place name commonly understood as “he builds.”
יַבְנֶה
The build-root sounds within the name of a site whose wall is breached, joining the place list to the construction that follows.
THE PATTERN
An opening in a boundary takes its meaning from what follows: control, expansion, repair, or unity.
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.And your seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and you shall burst forth to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the ground shall be blessed.For he is our wholeness, the one who made both one and loosed the middle wall of the fence.THE THREAD
Those who come from you shall build the dry ruins of the ages. You shall raise up the foundations of generation to generation, and you shall be called the mender of the breach, the one who turns the paths back to dwell in.Isaiah uses the same root פרץ (parats, “break through” or “breach”) in “repairer of the breach.” Here the breach is repaired and paths become fit for dwelling, showing how an opening can be made by force or restored toward habitation.
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