What Does 2 Chronicles 32:13 Mean?
Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of the lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands ever able to snatch their land out of my hand?
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
Know ye not what I and my fathers have done unto all the people of other lands? were the gods of the nations of those lands any ways able to deliver their lands out of mine hand?THE KEY
A hand that has conquered before presents its grip as the boundary beyond which deliverance cannot reach.
THE MEANING
This voice points to lands it has conquered and asks whether any god has pulled them from its hand. It turns past violence into a present claim of total control, making the threat larger than what has already been taken: it insists that no release is possible.
THE ROOT
לְהַצִּיל
lehaṣṣîl
GROWS FROM
נצל
n-ṣ-l
To rescue or pull away from danger or a grasp.
“snatch” in this verse is lehaṣṣîl. The root gathers the sense of rescue around pulling someone out of what holds them. Here, that possibility is set against a hand claiming it can keep whole lands in its grip.
ALSO GROWS
hiṣṣîl: He rescued or delivered.
הִצִּיל
The same root names rescue as an act that breaks someone free from danger.
niṣṣal: He was rescued or escaped.
נִצַּל
This form shifts attention from the one who pulls away to the person who gets out of the grasp.
maṣṣîl: One who rescues; a deliverer.
מַצִּיל
The root can name the rescuer as well as the act and the one rescued.
תֵדְעוּ
tēdeʿū
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know, recognize, or perceive through experience.
“know” in this verse is tēdeʿū. The speaker appeals to what has been encountered and done as proof that no escape is possible. The root’s sense of knowing through experience makes the leap visible: a record of past conquests is made to stand for knowledge of every possible future.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: To know or perceive.
יָדַע
This is the same verb family behind the speaker’s demand that the hearers recognize his record.
daʿat: Knowledge or understanding.
דַּעַת
This branch shows the root extending from knowing into what is held as knowledge.
nōdaʿ: Known or made known.
נוֹדָע
It points to what becomes recognized through experience or disclosure.
THE PATTERN
A captor’s claim to be the final hand over a people is answered when deliverance reaches them from beyond that hand.
Thus the LORD delivered Hezekiah and those who settle in Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all others, and led them on every side.And the LORD delivered Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the lip of the sea.Who brought us out of so great a death, and brings us out; in whom we hope that he will yet bring us out.THE THREAD
The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.The verb יַצִּילֵם (yaṣṣîlēm, “he delivers them”) comes from the same root נצל (n-ṣ-l, “to rescue or pull away”) as “deliver” here. The image shifts from a conquering hand’s boast to the LORD hearing a cry and pulling people out of trouble.
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