What Does 2 Chronicles 34:26 Mean?
And to the king of Judah, who sent you to seek the LORD, so you shall say to him, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, About the words that you have heard.
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 as for the king of Judah, who sent you to enquire of the LORD, so shall ye say unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel concerning the words which thou hast heard;THE KEY
The king’s seeking begins with release: he sends the question outward, and a heard word returns in answer.
THE MEANING
Seeking and hearing belong to one movement: your question goes outward, and words arrive that you can receive. You stand both within the asking and before what the answer says.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that an answer must come as a private intuition: here the sought word is heard, spoken, and carried through another person.
THE ROOT
לִדְרֹשׁ
lidrosh
GROWS FROM
דרש
darash
Seek, pursue, inquire.
“seek” in this verse is lidrosh. This root holds inquiry together with seeking and pursuing: the question is an active movement toward what is sought. Its branch מִדְרָשׁ (midrash), meaning interpretive study, shows that seeking can continue into close engagement with the words received.
ALSO GROWS
midrash: Interpretive study or exposition.
מִדְרָשׁ
Its shared root links asking to a sustained search for meaning in words.
derishah: A request, inquiry, or demand.
דְּרִישָׁה
It shows the same seeking can take the form of a direct request for an answer.
שֹׁלֵחַ
sholeach
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
Send, send forth, release.
“sent you” in this verse is sholeach. The word for sending belongs to a root that also carries the sense of releasing or sending forth. The king’s inquiry moves beyond him through messengers; the question is released into motion so the answer can return.
ALSO GROWS
shaluach: Sent or dispatched.
שָׁלוּחַ
It names the state of the messengers carrying the king’s inquiry outward.
shilluach: Sending away or dismissal.
שִׁלּוּחַ
It makes the root’s sense of sending forth visible in the king’s act of dispatch.
שָׁמָעְתָּ
shamata
GROWS FROM
שמע
shama
Hear, listen.
The verse completes the movement from seeking to hearing: the inquiry reaches the king as words he has heard. The related noun שְׁמוּעָה (shemuah), meaning report or news, shows how hearing can become a message carried from one person to another.
ALSO GROWS
shemi'ah: Hearing or listening.
שְׁמִיעָה
It makes explicit the receiving that completes the inquiry’s movement.
shemuah: A report or piece of news.
שְׁמוּעָה
It connects hearing with a message that can be carried and received.
THE PATTERN
Seeking moves outward and meets a word that can be heard and received.
Go, seek the LORD for me, and for those who remain in Israel and in Judah, about the words of the scroll that is found. For great is the burning anger of the LORD that is poured out upon us, because our fathers did not guard the word of the LORD, to do according to all that is written in this scroll.I seek the LORD, and he answers me, and snatches me out of every place of dread.Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.THE THREAD
I seek the LORD, and he answers me, and snatches me out of every place of dread.Psalm 34:4 uses the same Hebrew seeking root, דרש (darash), that stands beneath “enquire” here. It brings the movement into a single voice: seeking is met by hearing, and the heard response carries deliverance.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us