What Does 2 Chronicles 34:16 Mean?
And Shaphan brought the scroll to the king, and brought word back to the king, saying, All that was given into the hand of your servants, they do it.
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 Shaphan carried the book to the king, and brought the king word back again, saying, All that was committed to thy servants, they do it.THE KEY
What is placed in the servants’ hands is already moving toward action.
THE MEANING
The passage speaks of a word moving from the written page into hearing, then showing itself in work. What is placed in a person’s care is not merely received; it becomes visible in what is done.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that receiving or repeating a word completes it; here the word is confirmed by the work.
THE ROOT
נִתַּן
nittan
GROWS FROM
נתן
Give, set, place.
The Hebrew phrase is literally “was given into the hand.” What sounds like an abstract assignment is a placement into the servants’ reach, and the verse immediately shows that placement becoming action.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This is the verb beneath “was committed”: the work is something placed in their hands.
mattanah: Gift.
מַתָּנָה
A gift is something given into another’s keeping, echoing the transfer of responsibility in the verse.
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
Speak; word or matter.
Davar can name both a spoken word and a matter or thing. The report is therefore bound to what is actually happening: speech and the servants’ work belong to one movement.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke; to speak.
דִּבֵּר
The book’s contents become the report brought to the king.
devarim: Words or matters.
דְּבָרִים
This branch preserves the link between what is said and the matter being carried out.
סֵפֶר
sefer
GROWS FROM
ספר
Count, recount, relate, or write.
“scroll” in this verse is sefer. A sefer is tied to recounting: what is written can be read aloud and carried forward as a report. Shaphan (שָׁפָן, Shaphan, “rock hyrax”) is the named bearer who carries that written record into the king’s hearing.
ALSO GROWS
safar: To count, recount, relate, or write.
סָפַר
The book preserves what can be recounted and brought back as a report.
mispar: Number or count.
מִסְפָּר
This branch shows the root’s connection to setting things out in an ordered account.
THE PATTERN
A word reaches its purpose as what is received or heard takes visible form in action.
And it came to pass, when Moses had finished writing the words of this instruction in a book, until they were complete.For he says, and it comes to be; he commands, and it stands.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.Both verses use דָּבָר (davar, “word/matter”), connecting speech with what comes into being. Psalm 33:6 shows creation through the word; here, the reported word is confirmed in the servants’ work.
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