What Does 2 Chronicles 31:13 Mean?
And Jehiel, and Azaziah, and Nahath, and Asahel, and Jerimoth, and Jozabad, and Eliel, and Ismachiah, and Mahath, and Benaiah, were overseers under the hand of Cononiah and Shimei his brother, at the word of Hezekiah the king, and Azariah the leader of the house of God.
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 Jehiel, and Azaziah, and Nahath, and Asahel, and Jerimoth, and Jozabad, and Eliel, and Ismachiah, and Mahath, and Benaiah, were overseers under the hand of Cononiah and Shimei his brother, at the commandment of Hezekiah the king, and Azariah the ruler of the house of God.THE KEY
The root beneath “overseers” ties authority to attention: these are people appointed to attend to the work.
THE MEANING
This verse shows shared responsibility moving through named people: the overseers serve beneath two leaders, under the king’s command and the ruler of the house of God. Each layer is visible and entrusted with a place in the work. The verse speaks now wherever a shared charge is carried by a team.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that meaningful work depends on one indispensable person: here, many named overseers carry the charge within an ordered structure.
THE ROOT
פְּקִידִים
peqidim
GROWS FROM
פקד
paqad
To attend to, appoint, muster, or visit.
The English “overseers” can sound like a title defined only by authority. Its root also carries the sense of attending to a charge: oversight is an appointment to give the work one’s attention. The same root can describe a visitation, opening oversight into active regard.
ALSO GROWS
paqīd: An appointed official or overseer.
פָּקִיד
This related noun names a person assigned to attend to a responsibility, as these men are.
pequddah: A charge, office, oversight, or visitation.
פְּקֻדָּה
It links an assigned responsibility with the act of attending to it, showing the work inside the title “overseer.”
miphqad: A muster or numbering.
מִפְקָד
This branch connects the root with gathering people into an ordered count, another way an entrusted charge becomes visible.
THE PATTERN
A shared charge is made durable by appointing trusted people to defined places of oversight.
Moreover, you shall look out from all the people for men of strength, who stand in awe of God, men of truth, who hate plunder; and set such over them as rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.Now, brothers, look out among you seven men of good witness, full of the Set-Apart Breath and wisdom, whom we may set over this need.Moreover, it is sought among portioners that someone be found steady.THE THREAD
What is a frail one that you remember him, and the son of man that you visit him?The verb translated “visitest” comes from פקד (paqad), “attend to” or “visit”, the same root beneath “overseers” here. Psalm 8 opens oversight into attentive regard: the charge is something a person is present to.
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