What Does 2 Chronicles 30:1 Mean?
And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the LORD in Jerusalem, to keep the passover to the LORD God of Israel.
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 Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto the LORD God of Israel.THE KEY
The summons crosses divisions through shalach, send and release, and leads toward Jerusalem, whose name carries the language of wholeness.
THE MEANING
The call reaches across divided belonging and gathers people toward the LORD’s house in Jerusalem, where Passover keeps deliverance in view. A summons goes out, and those it reaches are invited into shared remembrance of the LORD God of Israel.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a divide in belonging makes the invitation inaccessible: the call reaches across Israel and Judah, including Ephraim and Manasseh.
THE ROOT
שָׁלַח
shalach
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send forth, release, let go.
English can make “sent” sound like mere dispatch; שָׁלַח (shalach, send and release) holds the sending and the letting go together. The call is released across boundaries so people can gather around Passover.
ALSO GROWS
Shiloach: Sent forth; the name associated with the sent waters of Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
The sent waters echo the verse’s movement: what is sent forth can become a means of restoration.
shulchan: Table; provision extended.
שֻׁלְחָן
The call toward Passover leads people toward a shared table, where provision is extended among those gathered.
יְרוּשָׁלַ͏ִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
Whole, complete; the root carried in shalem and shalom, wholeness.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The city’s name carries the language of wholeness, so the destination is more than an address: people who are called across divisions are drawn toward shared life. Passover gives that gathering a common center.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
It brings out the wholeness carried in Jerusalem’s name and in the gathering toward it.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
It echoes the movement from scattered identities toward a gathered whole.
פֶּסַח
pesach
GROWS FROM
פסח
Pass over, leap across; pass by or spare.
English can make Passover sound like only a festival name; פֶּסַח (pesach, Passover) retains the movement of passing over in its name. The gathering centers on a passage through danger toward release.
ALSO GROWS
pasach: To pass over, leap across, or spare.
פָּסַח
The verb reveals movement across a threshold inside the name of the observance.
pesach: Passover, the feast.
פֶּסַח
Keeping Passover makes the passage into deliverance something the gathered community remembers together.
THE PATTERN
A call toward wholeness reaches across division and gathers people into shared remembrance and provision.
And this day will be for you a remembrance. You will keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations, a statute for the ages.Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters, and whoever has no silver, come, break open and eat. Yes, come, break open wine and milk, without silver and without price.And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.THE THREAD
And the LORD spoke to Moses, Go in to Pharaoh, and say to him, Thus says the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me.The same שָׁלַח (shalach, send and release) carries both the demand to let people go and the summons sent to gather them. Release opens the way toward shared service and remembrance.
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