What Does 2 Chronicles 34:30 Mean?
And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah, and those who settle in Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small. And he read in their ears all the words of the scroll of the covenant that was found in the house of the LORD.
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 the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the LORD.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “read” also means “call”: the covenant is voiced as a summons to everyone, great and small.
THE MEANING
The covenant’s words are spoken where the whole assembly can hear them. Rank does not decide who is addressed; the reading reaches the great and the small alike.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The idea that the covenant’s words belong only to people with status or special authority gives way before this gathered hearing.
THE ROOT
קָרָא
qārāʾ
GROWS FROM
ק־ר־א
q-r-ʾ
To call, proclaim, or read aloud.
“read in their ears” in this verse is qārāʾ. The Hebrew verb for reading also carries the sense of calling. Here the king’s reading is not merely the handling of a text: the words call the gathered people into shared hearing.
ALSO GROWS
miqraʾ: A reading or a convocation, a gathering called together.
מִקְרָא
This branch links voiced words with an assembled people, as the covenant is read in the hearing of everyone gathered.
qeriʾah: A calling or a reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
It keeps the act of reading close to proclaiming: the words are carried into the ears of the assembly.
THE PATTERN
When covenant words are read aloud to the gathered people, hearing becomes a shared summons across ranks and generations.
When all Israel comes to see the face of the LORD your God in the place he will choose, you will call out this instruction before all Israel, in their ears.And he called aloud from it before the wide place that was before the gate of the waters, from first light until the middle of the day, facing the men and the women, and those who could tell the difference, and the ears of all the people were turned toward the book of the instruction.And he came to Nazareth, where he had been nourished. As was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read.THE THREAD
When all Israel comes to see the face of the LORD your God in the place he will choose, you will call out this instruction before all Israel, in their ears.The same Hebrew verb, קָרָא (qārāʾ), means to read aloud and to call. Deuteronomy names the same shape of hearing: the words are read before all the people, making the reading a summons shared by the whole assembly.
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