What Does 2 Chronicles 28:6 Mean?
For Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah an hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all men of strength; because they had let go of the LORD God of their fathers.
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
For Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah an hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men; because they had forsaken the LORD God of their fathers.THE KEY
The verse places 120,000 valiant deaths beside one relational verb, forsake, and names that departure as the cause of the catastrophe.
THE MEANING
This verse holds an immense slaughter and its stated cause together: 120,000 valiant men die in Judah in one day because the people have forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers. The word “valiant” marks them as capable men, even as the verse places their deaths within the people’s rupture with the LORD.
THE ROOT
עָזְבוּ
azvu
GROWS FROM
עזב
ʿazav
To leave, abandon, or forsake.
“let go of” in this verse is azvu. The verb means an enacted departure: the people leave the LORD, rather than merely feeling distant from him. The root can also name the state left behind by abandonment, carrying the act of departure into its aftermath.
ALSO GROWS
azav: To leave, abandon, or forsake.
עָזַב
This is the root’s base verb; its plural form in this verse names the people’s act of departure.
azuvah: A forsaken or abandoned one.
עֲזוּבָה
Isaiah 62:4 uses this root-derived form for Zion’s former name, showing how the root can also name the condition abandonment leaves behind.
גִּבּוֹרִים
gibborim
GROWS FROM
גבר
gavar
To be strong or prevail.
“Valiant” belongs to a word family built around strength and prevailing. The verse calls the slain men mighty, so their deaths cannot be read as the defeat of a helpless force.
ALSO GROWS
gibbor: A mighty man or warrior.
גִּבּוֹר
This singular form names the kind of strength attributed to the men slain in the verse.
gevurah: Might, strength, or valor.
גְּבוּרָה
This related noun makes the strength behind “valiant” visible as a quality, underscoring what the slaughter takes away.
THE PATTERN
Forsaking God is portrayed as a relational rupture whose consequences become visible in what follows.
And they let go of the LORD God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and walked after other gods, the gods of the peoples around them, and bowed down to them, and provoked the LORD to anger.For my people have done two evils; they have let go of me, the spring of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, shattered cisterns that cannot grip water.And just as they did not see fit to hold God in their knowing, God gave them over to a mind that failed the test, to do what does not fit.THE THREAD
And he went out to meet Asa, and said to him, Hear and respond to me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin. The LORD is with you, while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you. But if you let go of him, he will let go of you.The same Hebrew root for “forsake” appears on both sides of the conditional: if the people forsake the LORD, he will forsake them. That shared verb makes the departure in 28:6 legible as a relational rupture with stated consequences.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us