What Does 2 Chronicles 32:19 Mean?
And they spoke against the God of Jerusalem, as against the gods of the peoples of the earth, which are the work of human hands.
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 they spake against the God of Jerusalem, as against the gods of the people of the earth, which were the work of the hands of man.THE KEY
The taunt exposes a category error: it speaks of the God of Jerusalem as though he were one of the gods made by human hands.
THE MEANING
When a voice treats the God of Jerusalem as one more god among the gods of the earth, it places him in the same category as human handiwork. The verse exposes that collapse: the gods it names are works of human hands, while the God they speak against is not described as something people made.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse undoes is that the God of Jerusalem is simply another human-made god.
THE ROOT
מַעֲשֵׂה
ma'aseh
GROWS FROM
ע־ש־ה
ʿ-sh-h
To do, make, or bring about.
The word for “work” comes from the same root as “make”: these gods are explicitly the outcome of human making. English can leave “work” sounding abstract, but the Hebrew points to a made thing, which sharpens the contrast with the God the speakers compare to them.
ALSO GROWS
asah: To do or make.
עָשָׂה
This verb makes the human act behind the gods explicit: they are made.
ma'aseh: A deed, work, or thing made.
מַעֲשֶׂה
The verse uses this noun for what human hands have produced.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ם
sh-l-m
Wholeness, completeness.
Yerushalayim carries shalom, wholeness, with a dual ending. That name sits inside the phrase “God of Jerusalem,” while the gods he is compared to are explicitly called human handiwork.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
This is the wholeness carried within the name Yerushalayim.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch gives the root’s sense of completeness that also echoes in the city’s name.
אָדָם
adam
GROWS FROM
א־ד־ם
ʾ-d-m
Ground; the human as a ground-being.
The makers are called adam, the ground-being, a word linked to adamah, ground or soil. The verse places human making beside God: the ground-being’s hands can make gods, but the text does not place the God of Jerusalem among those products.
ALSO GROWS
adamah: Ground, soil.
אֲדָמָה
This branch reveals the grounded nature carried by adam.
adam: Human, ground-being.
אָדָם
This is the human maker whose hands produce the gods named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Human hands can make images of gods, but the maker of all things is not a product of human making.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.God, who made the world and all that is within it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not settle in handmade temples.THE THREAD
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.Psalm 115:4 uses the same phrase, “the work of men’s hands,” to name the gods being compared with the God of Jerusalem. It makes the category visible: human hands can shape idols, and this verse shows the taunt placing God among them.
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