What Does 2 Chronicles 30:2 Mean?
For the king had taken counsel, and his princes, and all the assembly in Jerusalem, to keep the passover in the second month.
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 the king had taken counsel, and his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem, to keep the passover in the second month.THE KEY
The timing of the Passover becomes a shared decision: the king, princes, and whole assembly take counsel together.
THE MEANING
Shared discernment can carry a sacred practice through a changed time. The king, princes, and whole assembly agree to do the Passover in the second month. The observance remains communal even as its date shifts.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
“If I miss the appointed time, the chance is gone” is not the only possibility; this verse holds open a second month for the Passover.
THE ROOT
וַיִּוָּעַץ
wayyivva'ets
GROWS FROM
יעץ
To advise, deliberate, or form a plan.
“took counsel” in this verse is wayyivva'ets. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of deliberating together, and the sentence includes the king, princes, and whole assembly in that counsel. The changed timing emerges from shared discernment, not a solitary decision.
ALSO GROWS
ʿetsah: Counsel, advice, or a plan.
עֵצָה
The shared root ties deliberation to the plan that gives this observance a time.
yo'ets: One who advises or counsels.
יוֹעֵץ
The root can name both the act of deliberation and the person who contributes counsel.
הַפֶּסַח
ha-pesaḥ
GROWS FROM
פסח
To pass over, spring over, or spare.
The Hebrew phrase says “to do the Passover,” while the feast-name comes from פָּסַח (pāsaḥ, pass over or spare). A related form describes a lame or limping gait, keeping a sense of movement in the root’s range.
ALSO GROWS
pāsaḥ: To pass over or spare.
פָּסַח
This verbal form reveals the action carried within the name of the observance.
pissēaḥ: Lame, limping, or hopping.
פִּסֵּחַ
The related form adds a bodily sense of stepping or skipping to the root’s movement.
הַקָּהָל
haqqahal
GROWS FROM
קהל
To assemble or gather as a community.
“Congregation” can sound like a crowd merely present for a ruler’s decision, but this root names the gathered body itself. The assembly participates in the counsel that sets the Passover’s timing.
ALSO GROWS
qahal: An assembled group or congregation.
קָהָל
The word names the gathered community that shares in the decision.
haqhel: To gather people together.
הַקְהֵל
This verbal form makes the assembly an act of gathering, not merely a group label.
THE PATTERN
When the ordinary Passover date cannot be observed, a recognized second-month date carries the same observance forward.
On the fourteenth day of the second month, between the evenings, they shall make it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.Then they slaughtered the passover on the fourteenth day of the second month, and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and set themselves apart, and brought the rising offerings into the house of the LORD.THE THREAD
On the fourteenth day of the second month, between the evenings, they shall make it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.Numbers names the same second-month observance; this verse shows it chosen by the whole assembly in Jerusalem. Both use פֶּסַח (pesaḥ, Passover), from פָּסַח (pāsaḥ, pass over or spare), connecting the changed date to the same act at the heart of the feast.
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