What Does 2 Chronicles 33:15 Mean?
And he turned aside the foreign gods, and the carved image out of the house of the LORD, and all the altars he had built on the mountain of the house of the LORD, and in Jerusalem, and sent them out of the city.
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 he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the LORD, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the LORD, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city.THE KEY
The verse ends by making removal physical: what has occupied the sacred center is hurled beyond the city’s edge.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you where what is foreign has been given room inside what is set apart. The clearing reaches from the house to the city edge: the objects are removed and carried beyond the boundary. Their presence there does not make them permanent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that whatever has been placed inside a sacred space must belong there permanently.
THE ROOT
וַיַּשְׁלֵךְ
wayyashlekh
GROWS FROM
שׁ־ל־ךְ
sh-l-k
to throw, hurl, or cast
“sent them out” in this verse is wayyashlekh. The Hebrew verb describes a concrete throw, so what was within the LORD’s house and Jerusalem is hurled beyond the city. This root can cast idols away or place a burden onto the LORD; the object and destination shape the act.
ALSO GROWS
hashlekh: cast, throw
הַשְׁלֵךְ
Psalm 55:22 uses this form to cast a burden onto the LORD, showing the root’s motion without fixing its direction.
we-hishlikh: and he casts away
וְהִשְׁלִיךְ
Isaiah 2:20 uses the same root for casting away silver and gold idols, echoing the physical disposal of idols here.
THE PATTERN
Clearing a sacred center carries what has displaced its purpose beyond its boundary.
Then Jacob said to his household, and to all who were with him, Turn aside the foreign gods that are among you, and cleanse yourselves, and change your garments.In that day a man shall throw away his nothings of silver and nothings of gold, which they made for themselves to bow down before, to the moles and to the bats;And Jesus went into the temple of God, and threw out all who sold and bought in the temple, and turned over the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of those who sold doves.THE THREAD
Throw your load upon the LORD, and he holds you. He does not give the aligned one to totter for the ages.The Hebrew verb translated “cast” comes from the same root as the verb at the end of 2 Chronicles 33:15. There, idols are thrown beyond the city; here, a burden is cast onto the LORD, so the shared motion reveals what is expelled and what is entrusted.
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