What Does 2 Chronicles 36:14 Mean?
Moreover all the chiefs of the priests and the people multiplied their treachery after all the abominations of the nations, and soiled the house of the LORD which he had set apart in Jerusalem.
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
Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.THE KEY
The people make unclean what the LORD has set apart.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to the reader where loyalty to what is set apart is being broken: the breach reaches the people and the shared house entrusted to them. The house’s pollution and its set-apart identity stand together, making the violation visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Religious standing does not make a sacred place immune to defilement; even its leaders can violate the trust placed in them.
THE ROOT
וַיִּטַּמְּאוּ
vayyitamməʾû
GROWS FROM
ט־מ־א
Be or become unclean; defile.
“soiled” in this verse is vayyitamməʾû. The verb makes the people’s defiling of the house an action, not a vague condition. Beside it, “hallowed” names the house as set apart, revealing the violation as contamination of what has a distinct identity.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāmēʾ: Unclean.
טָמֵא
This branch names the condition associated with the people’s act of defiling the house.
ṭumʾāh: Uncleanness, defilement.
טֻמְאָה
This noun gives the resulting state a name: pollution is a condition, not merely a passing impression.
הִרְבּוּ לִמְעֹל מָעַל
hirbû limʿol maʿal
GROWS FROM
מ־ע־ל
Act unfaithfully; violate a trust or commit a trespass.
“treachery” in this verse is hirbû limʿol maʿal. The Hebrew describes an increase in committing maʿal, a breach of trust. The verse frames the people’s conduct as betrayal as well as transgression, and the resulting pollution follows that broken trust.
ALSO GROWS
maʿal: Trespass, breach of trust.
מַעַל
This noun reveals the relational weight carried by “transgressed”: a trust has been violated.
maʿal: Act unfaithfully, commit a trespass.
מָעַל
This verb names the action the people multiply in the verse.
הִקְדִּישׁ
hiqdîsh
GROWS FROM
ק־ד־ש
Set apart, make distinct for sacred use.
“set apart” in this verse is hiqdîsh. The house is described through the LORD’s act of setting it apart. Its defilement therefore reaches the boundary that gives it its distinct identity.
ALSO GROWS
qādôsh: Set apart.
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective carries the same root sense of distinctness into the house’s sacred character.
miqdāsh: Sanctuary, a set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
This branch applies the root to a place, linking the house’s setting apart to the sanctuary itself.
THE PATTERN
Those entrusted with what is set apart can violate it, and the violation reaches the place itself.
And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given of his seed to Molech, to soil my set-apart place, and to pierce my set-apart name.Therefore as I live, says the Lord GOD, Surely, because you have made unclean my set-apart place with all your loathsome things, and with all your recoiling things, therefore I will also diminish you. Neither shall my eye spare, nor will I have pity.If anyone ruins the temple of God, God will ruin him, for God's temple is set apart, and you are that temple.THE THREAD
Therefore as I live, says the Lord GOD, Surely, because you have made unclean my set-apart place with all your loathsome things, and with all your recoiling things, therefore I will also diminish you. Neither shall my eye spare, nor will I have pity.Both verses use טמא (ṭāmēʾ), “be or become unclean; defile,” for the sanctuary’s contamination. The repeated root makes the desecration concrete: the people defile the place set apart to the LORD.
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