What Does 2 Chronicles 28:10 Mean?
And now ye purpose to press under foot the children of Judah and Jerusalem, to make them your servants and your maidservants. But are there not with you, even with you, guilt against the LORD your God?
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 now ye purpose to keep under the children of Judah and Jerusalem for bondmen and bondwomen unto you: but are there not with you, even with you, sins against the LORD your God?THE KEY
As the captors plan to put Judah under them, the verse names the guilt already resting with the captors themselves.
THE MEANING
When you seek to place another person under your power, this verse turns the question toward what is already present in your own life before God. The ability to make another serve does not remove your own guilt before the LORD.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that power to punish or enslave another proves the powerful person is right with God; the verse confronts the captors with their own guilt.
THE ROOT
אֲשָׁמוֹת
ʾăšāmōt
GROWS FROM
אשם
ʾ-sh-m
Be guilty, incur guilt; guilt or offense.
Beneath “sins” is אשם (ʾāshām, guilt or offense), a word family that also names a guilt offering. The question presses the captors to face the guilt already with them before they presume to enslave Judah.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsham: Be guilty; incur guilt.
אָשַׁם
Guilt is something incurred, not merely a charge aimed at an opponent; here the prophet asks whether it is present among the captors too.
ʾāshām: Guilt; guilt offering.
אָשָׁם
The same word family names both guilt and the offering brought for guilt, linking wrongdoing with accountability before the LORD.
לִכְבֹּשׁ
likhbōsh
GROWS FROM
כבש
k-b-sh
Subdue; bring under control.
“press under foot” in this verse is likhbōsh. The verb carries the force of subduing, not simply keeping someone nearby. The same root appears in the command to “subdue” the earth; here its object is people, making the intended coercion plain.
ALSO GROWS
kābash: Subdue; bring under mastery.
כָּבַשׁ
This verb’s force clarifies that the captors mean to bring Judah under their control.
ve-khivshuhā: And subdue it (Genesis 1:28).
וְכִבְשֻׁהָ
The creation command uses the same root for subduing the earth; in this verse, the target is Judah.
עֲבָדִים
ʿăvādīm
GROWS FROM
עבד
ʿ-b-d
Work; serve.
“your servants” in this verse is ʿăvādīm. עֲבָדִים (ʿăvādīm, servants or slaves) comes from the root עבד (ʿāvad, work or serve). The word family can describe service, but here the plan to possess people makes that service coerced.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvad: Work; serve.
עָבַד
The verb is also used for serving the LORD; this verse’s context makes clear that the service imposed on Judah is forced.
ʿeved: Servant; slave.
עֶבֶד
This singular form names the status the captors intend to impose on the people of Judah.
THE PATTERN
The power to accuse or dominate another does not remove the guilt already present in the one who wields it.
You shall not press down on the sojourner, nor squeeze him; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.Why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not notice the beam in your own eye?Therefore you have no word to answer with, O human, whoever you are who judges others, for in whatever you judge in another you press the sentence down upon yourself, for you who judge practice the very same things.THE THREAD
And he brings to the LORD, for his falling short in which he has missed the mark, his guilt offering, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats, as an offering for it; and the priest makes a covering for him from his falling short.Leviticus uses אָשָׁם (ʾāshām, guilt offering) from the same אשם (ʾ-sh-m) word family that appears here as “sins.” That link makes the accusation concrete: the captors’ guilt stands before the LORD even as they plan to place Judah under them.
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