What Does 2 Chronicles 32:1 Mean?
After these words and this truth, Sennacherib king of Assyria came into Judah, and pitched against the walled cities, and said to split them open for himself.
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
After these things, and the establishment thereof, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, and entered into Judah, and encamped against the fenced cities, and thought to win them for himself.THE KEY
The word rendered “win” means “break them open,” so the verse describes conquest as a breach aimed at possession.
THE MEANING
You can stand amid what is established and still face a force gathering against its boundaries. The verse names the threat plainly: a king camps against fortified cities, intending to break in and take them for himself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that being established or well-defended makes you untouchable. The verse holds firmness and vulnerability together: fortified cities can still be targeted for a breach.
THE ROOT
לְבִקְעָם
ləviqʿām
GROWS FROM
בקע
b-q-ʿ
Split, cleave, break open.
“said to split them open for himself” in this verse is ləviqʿām. The verb behind “win” means to break the cities open, so the king’s intention is a breach ending in possession. The same root describes waters divided into a passage of escape; the root names the opening, while the scene shows whether it serves seizure or passage.
ALSO GROWS
nibqeʿu: Were split open; broke out.
נִבְקְעוּ
The same form describes the deep broken open in Genesis 7:11 and waters breaking out in Isaiah 35:6, showing that an opening can release destructive force or life-giving water.
wayyibbaqʿu: And the waters were divided.
וַיִּבָּקְעוּ
At the sea in Exodus 14:21, this root describes a way opening through the waters, a breach that becomes a passage out.
הָאֱמֶת
ha’emet
GROWS FROM
אמן
ʾ-m-n
Be firm, steady, reliable; hence firmness or truth.
The KJV’s “establishment” carries the seed of firmness: אֱמֶת (emet), meaning truth or firmness, belongs to the root אמן (aman), to be firm or steady. Its branches include אֱמוּנָה (emunah), trust that leans its full weight, and אָמֵן (amen), “firm” or “so be it”; the verse holds that firmness alongside an advancing siege.
ALSO GROWS
emunah: Trust; firmness that can be relied on.
אֱמוּנָה
Trust and establishment share the seed of firmness, bringing steadiness into the verse’s opening phrase.
amen: Firm, steady; so be it.
אָמֵן
The familiar word carries the same affirmation of firmness that sits beside the approaching threat.
THE PATTERN
A broken boundary changes what can pass through it: a breach can admit an invader, release judgment, or let restoration break out.
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that very day, all the springs of the great deep were split open, and the windows of heaven were opened.But know this, that if the householder knew in what watch the thief comes, he would stay awake and would not let his house be dug through.Then the limping one leaps like a hart, and the tongue of the mute rings out. For waters split open in the wilderness, and streams in the desert plain.THE THREAD
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD made the sea go back by a strong breath of the east all that night, and made the sea dry ground, and the waters were split.The verb behind “win” comes from בקע (baqaʿ), the same root used when the waters divide at the sea. Here a breach is aimed at possessing fortified cities; there, the split opens a way through danger. The root names an opening, while the scene reveals whether it serves seizure or passage.
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