What Does 2 Chronicles 28:4 Mean?
He slaughtered also and made smoke rise in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree.
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
He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree.THE KEY
The verse makes devotion spatial: sacrifice and incense spread across heights, hills, and the space beneath every green tree.
THE MEANING
This verse shows devotion taking concrete forms and occupying concrete places: sacrifice and incense at the heights, on the hills, beneath every green tree. The repeated sweep of “every” makes the practice pervasive across the landscape.
THE ROOT
וַיְזַבֵּחַ
wayezabbēaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
z-b-ḥ
To slaughter; by extension, to sacrifice.
“slaughtered” in this verse is wayezabbēaḥ. The verb’s root also appears in the word for an offering and in the word for an altar. English can make “sacrifice” sound like a self-contained ritual, while Hebrew links the act, what is offered, and the place of offering through one root.
ALSO GROWS
zevaḥ: Sacrifice; offering.
זֶבַח
The noun names what the verb describes: the act and its offering share the same seed.
mizbēaḥ: Altar; place of sacrifice.
מִזְבֵּחַ
The altar’s name comes from the same root, linking the act of sacrifice to the place that receives it.
וַיְקַטֵּר
wayqaṭṭēr
GROWS FROM
קטר
q-ṭ-r
To burn incense or make smoke rise as an offering.
“made smoke rise” in this verse is wayqaṭṭēr. The Hebrew keeps the burning of incense inside a word family for incense and the one who offers it. The act is tangible: incense is burned, and smoke rises from it.
ALSO GROWS
qetōret: Incense.
קְטֹרֶת
This noun names what is burned in the act described by the verse.
maqtīr: One who offers incense.
מַקְטִיר
This form names the person performing the same act, keeping the offering and its offerer within one root family.
THE PATTERN
Devotion takes visible form through what is offered and where or how it is offered.
And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird, and sent up rising offerings on the altar.Therefore I urge you, brothers, through the compassions of God, to set your bodies beside God as a living sacrifice, set apart, well-pleasing to him, which is your true service.Through him, then, let us always carry up a sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.THE THREAD
So that the children of Israel may bring their slaughters, which they slaughter upon the face of the field, bringing them to the LORD, to the door of the tent of meeting, to the priest, and slaughter wholeness offerings to the LORD.“Sacrifices” here comes from the same זבח (z-b-ḥ, zabach) root as “sacrificed” in this verse. Leviticus names both the offering’s destination and its place, making the locations in 2 Chronicles part of what the verse reveals about the act.
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