What Does 2 Chronicles 35:23 Mean?
And the archers shot at King Josiah, and the king said to his servants, Carry me across, for I am greatly wounded.
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 archers shot at king Josiah; and the king said to his servants, Have me away; for I am sore wounded.THE KEY
The word translated “wounded” also names weakness and sickness, so the arrow’s deepest effect is a king brought into dependence on others.
THE MEANING
Violence reaches the body without regard for rank: the king names his injury and asks others to carry him away. He still speaks with authority, yet his body’s condition makes him dependent on their hands to move him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that rank makes a person invulnerable breaks here: a king can be wounded and need others to carry him.
THE ROOT
הָחֲלֵיתִי
haḥalêṯî
GROWS FROM
חלה
ḥ-l-h
To be weak or sick, to enter a weakened condition.
“greatly wounded” in this verse is haḥalêṯî. The Hebrew form from חלה (ḥ-l-h) holds the arrow’s injury together with the weakness it brings. Josiah names not only what has happened to his body, but the impaired state that leaves him needing to be carried.
ALSO GROWS
ḥolî: Sickness, disease
חֹלִי
This related noun names the weakened condition itself, which deepens the force of Josiah’s words.
maḥălāh: Illness, disease
מַחֲלָה
This form keeps attention on the body’s altered state, not only on the moment it is struck.
וַיֹּרוּ
wayyōrû
GROWS FROM
ירה
y-r-h
To cast or throw; also to direct or instruct.
“shot” in this verse is wayyōrû. The verb belongs to a root that also yields words for instruction and a teacher. Here its physical branch makes the king the target of a force deliberately aimed.
ALSO GROWS
tôrāh: Instruction, direction
תּוֹרָה
This branch carries the root’s sense of directing, which sits alongside the directed cast of the arrows.
môrēh: Teacher, one who directs
מוֹרֶה
This related word keeps the idea of pointing or directing within the same root family.
THE PATTERN
A human body remains vulnerable to injury and death regardless of the rank or title surrounding it.
And the battle grew heavy upon Saul, and the archers reached him, and he writhed greatly before them.What man lives and does not see death? Will he slip his living soul out of the hand of the hollow? Selah.But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.THE THREAD
And the battle grew heavy upon Saul, and the archers reached him, and he writhed greatly before them.The same Hebrew root חלה (ḥ-l-h), meaning to be weak or sick, describes Saul as “sore wounded” by archers. The echo sets Josiah’s plea beside another king’s body brought low by arrow fire.
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