What Does 2 Chronicles 3:3 Mean?
Now these are the foundations Solomon laid for building the house of God. The length, by the first measure, was sixty forearms, and its width twenty forearms.
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
Now these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God. The length by cubits after the first measure was threescore cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits.THE KEY
What the verse calls instruction also carries the sense of laying a foundation: the house begins with an established pattern made visible in its measurements.
THE MEANING
The house of God takes shape through definite proportion: its length and breadth are measured, not left indistinct. Here, instruction includes the foundational order that gives the dwelling its form.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This verse undoes the idea that sacredness is formless: the house of God is described through exact length and breadth.
THE ROOT
הוּסַד
hûsad
GROWS FROM
יסד
To found, establish, or lay a basis.
“the foundations Solomon laid” in this verse is hûsad. The word rendered “instructed” carries the root sense of being founded or established. The measurements make that foundation concrete: the house’s form is part of the instruction.
ALSO GROWS
yesod: Foundation or basis.
יְסוֹד
It makes the foundational sense in the verse explicit: the house’s dimensions belong to its basis.
mosad: Foundation or established structure.
מוֹסָד
It echoes the movement from a received basis to a structure that can be built.
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shlomo
GROWS FROM
שלם
To be whole or complete.
Solomon’s name carries the sound and root of shalom, wholeness. Beside the measured house, the name connects its ordered form with completeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
It gives the name its sense of wholeness alongside the house’s defined proportions.
shalem: Whole or complete.
שָׁלֵם
It shows the same root describing a state of completeness, not just a name.
לִבְנוֹת
livnot
GROWS FROM
בנה
To build or establish a structure.
The verb makes the house a formed thing, brought into shape. Hebrew also connects this root with ben, “son,” so building and the continuation of a household share a word-family.
ALSO GROWS
banah: To build.
בָּנָה
It is the action named in the verse: giving the house a form.
ben: Son.
בֵּן
Its connection to the build-root opens a sense of a household as something built across generations.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling set apart for God takes form through a received pattern made concrete in measure.
According to all that I show you, the form of the dwelling and the form of all its vessels, so you make it.All this, said David, the LORD made me see in writing by his hand upon me, even all the works of this shape.who serve in a tracing and a shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was warned by God when he was about to finish the tent. For look, he says, "Make all things according to the impression shown to you on the mountain."THE THREAD
Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a weighty cornerstone, a foundation set firm. The one who leans his weight will not hurry.The foundation language in Isaiah shares the root יסד (y-s-d) with the word rendered “instructed” here. The measured house rests on an established basis; Isaiah carries that same root into the image of a sure foundation in Zion.
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