What Does 2 Chronicles 29:6 Mean?
For our fathers have broken trust with him, and done what was evil in the eyes of the LORD our God, and have let go of him, and have turned their faces away from the dwelling of the LORD, and have turned their backs.
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 our fathers have trespassed, and done that which was evil in the eyes of the LORD our God, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the LORD, and turned their backs.THE KEY
Forsaking God becomes visible as a change of direction: the face turns away from where God dwells, and the back turns toward it.
THE MEANING
The verse lays out estrangement as a movement: allegiance breaks, God is left, and the face turns away from the place where God dwells. It speaks now of departure as an embodied orientation, not merely a hidden thought.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that turning away from God is only an inward feeling: the verse gives estrangement a direction, with a face turned away and a back set toward the dwelling.
THE ROOT
וַיַּסֵּבּוּ
wayyassēbbû
GROWS FROM
סבב
sabab
to turn about, go around, or surround
“turned their faces away” in this verse is wayyassēbbû. The verb makes turning away a physical reorientation rather than an abstract loss of devotion. The same root can describe movement around something, so the image holds both turning and the space one turns within.
ALSO GROWS
sābab: to turn about or go around
סָבַב
It shows the motion carried by the verse’s verb: the face is deliberately redirected.
sāvîv: around, all around
סָבִיב
This related form brings out the spatial quality of the turning: attention and orientation have a direction.
מִשְׁכַּן
mishkan
GROWS FROM
שכן
shakan
to settle or dwell
“the dwelling of the LORD” in this verse is mishkan. The habitation is named through the act of dwelling. The root also gives a word for a neighbor, tying dwelling to nearness; the place they turn from is where the LORD dwells among them.
ALSO GROWS
shākhan: to dwell or settle
שָׁכַן
It is the verb behind the habitation, making the verse’s focus God’s dwelling rather than a building alone.
shākhen: neighbor, one dwelling nearby
שָׁכֵן
This branch connects dwelling with nearness, sharpening what is being turned away from.
וַיַּעַזְבֻהוּ
wayyaʿazvūhû
GROWS FROM
עזב
ʿazav
to leave or abandon
“let go of him” in this verse is wayyaʿazvūhû. The verb names departure itself: God is left, then the faces turn away from the dwelling. The sequence makes forsaking concrete, with the inward breach expressed in bodily direction.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāzûv: forsaken, abandoned
עָזוּב
This form shows the state produced by leaving: what has been left stands forsaken.
yaʿăzōv: he leaves or abandons
יַעֲזֹב
This form keeps the action visible: forsaking is an act of leaving behind.
THE PATTERN
Disloyalty takes visible shape in the direction a person turns toward or away from God’s presence.
Saying to the wood, You are my father, and to the stone, You bore us. For they have turned their nape to me, and not their faces. But in the time of their harm they say, Rise and deliver us.And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the LORD, and behold, at the opening of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the sunrise, and they bowed down to the sun toward the sunrise.But whenever it turns to the LORD, the covering is lifted off.THE THREAD
And let them make me a set-apart place, that I may pitch my tent among them.The word behind “habitation” here is מִשְׁכַּן (mishkan), from שָׁכַן (shakan), “to dwell”; Exodus uses that same root in “that I may dwell among them.” The thing they turn away from is the dwelling meant to be among them, not merely a sacred building.
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