What Does 2 Chronicles 31:16 Mean?
Beside their genealogy of males, from three years old and upward, even to everyone who comes into the house of the LORD, his daily portion for his serving in his guard, by their watches;
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
Beside their genealogy of males, from three years old and upward, even unto every one that entereth into the house of the LORD, his daily portion for their service in their charges according to their courses;THE KEY
The “daily portion” is לִדְבַר (lidvar, “for the word or matter”): each day’s due is named as its matter, joined to the service it sustains.
THE MEANING
The daily share and the daily service belong together: each person receives the day’s due within an ordered cycle of work and watch. The count begins at three years old, placing even the youngest entrants within that provision and shared service.
THE ROOT
לִדְבַר יוֹם בְּיוֹמוֹ
lidvar yom beyomo
GROWS FROM
דבר
Word, spoken matter, or affair
The phrase rendered “daily portion” is literally framed as the matter of each day, on its day. The same root carries the sense of “word,” so the verse’s allotted due belongs to the language of a word or matter as well as a share.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word, matter, or affair
דָּבָר
This is the noun in the verse’s phrase for what is due day by day.
dibbēr: To speak
דִּבֵּר
The verb shares the root of “word,” showing how a spoken word and a matter at hand grow from the same seed.
בְּמִשְׁמְרוֹתָם
bemishmerotam
GROWS FROM
שמר
Keep, guard, or watch
“guard” in this verse is bemishmerotam. The “charges” are watches: the assignments are pictured as keeping watch, not merely occupying a post. The daily portion is distributed within a pattern of attentive care.
ALSO GROWS
shāmar: Keep, guard, watch
שָׁמַר
The verb names the guarding that lies beneath each assigned watch.
shōmēr: Keeper or watchman
שֹׁמֵר
The person who keeps watch belongs to the same root as the “charges” in the verse.
לַעֲבֹדָתָם
la'avodatam
GROWS FROM
עבד
Work or serve
“serving” in this verse is la'avodatam. “Service” shares its root with the word for a servant. The verse joins each person’s daily share to the work they serve in, holding provision and service within one arrangement.
ALSO GROWS
'āvad: Work or serve
עָבַד
The verb carries the action behind the service named in the verse.
'eved: Servant
עֶבֶד
The noun names the one who serves, from the same root as the work they perform.
THE PATTERN
Provision is given in a day-by-day measure that sustains life and its appointed work.
Then the LORD said to Moses, Look, I will rain bread for you from the heavens. The people shall go out and gather each day's portion on its day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my instruction or not.All of them look to you, to give them their food in its time.Give us today our bread for the coming day.THE THREAD
And he bent you low, and made you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had never perceived, nor had your fathers, so that he might make you perceive that humankind does not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes out from the mouth of the LORD does humankind live.The “portion” phrase in 2 Chronicles uses דָּבָר (dābār, “word or matter”), the same root rendered “word” here. That shared root lets the day’s due be heard as both a share and a matter for its day, while Deuteronomy names the word proceeding from the LORD as what sustains life.
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