What Does 2 Chronicles 36:5 Mean?
Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD his God.
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
Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD his God.THE KEY
Jehoiakim’s name says “YHWH raises,” yet the verse places his reign beneath the gaze that sees his evil.
THE MEANING
Your years, title, and position do not make your conduct invisible to the LORD. The verse holds authority and exposure together: a ruler can remain in power while his actions are seen as evil. The LORD’s sight reaches the person beneath the title.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that holding authority or occupying a sacred place automatically makes a person pleasing to God.
THE ROOT
יהויקים
Yehoyaqim
GROWS FROM
קום
Rise, stand; in the name’s verbal form, raise or establish.
Jehoiakim’s name bears the meaning “YHWH raises” or “YHWH establishes.” The verse sets that name beside his actions: being raised to a position does not itself make those actions good.
ALSO GROWS
qûm: Rise, stand.
קוּם
This verb is the seed carried in the name, which speaks of being raised or established.
maqom: Place, standing-place.
מָקוֹם
This word shares the root קום, linking a place with the idea of standing or being established.
הָרַע
hā-rāʿ
GROWS FROM
רעע
Be bad or act wickedly.
The verse names Jehoiakim’s conduct as רע, evil, and places that judgment in the LORD’s sight. The verdict concerns what he does, not merely his title or public standing.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad, evil.
רַע
This form names the evil attributed to Jehoiakim’s actions.
rāʿāh: Evil, harm.
רָעָה
This related form keeps the root’s sense of badness visible across different forms of the word.
בְּעֵינֵי
bəʿênê
GROWS FROM
עין
Eye; the same Hebrew word also means a spring or source.
The phrase is literally “in the eyes of the LORD,” keeping the image of sight concrete. The same word עַיִן also names a spring, another visible source; English “sight” does not carry that second sense.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: Eye.
עַיִן
This is the singular form behind the verse’s phrase “in the eyes of.”
ʿayin: Spring, water source.
עַיִן
The same Hebrew word names a spring, showing a second concrete sense that the English rendering does not carry.
THE PATTERN
The LORD sees through public position and judges conduct beyond human appearances.
But the LORD said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, for I have pushed him away. The LORD does not see as the human sees. The human sees what is outside, but the LORD sees the heart.The eyes of the LORD are in every place, watching the harm and the good.And no creation is hidden before him, but all things are naked and bared at the throat to the eyes of him to whom our account belongs.THE THREAD
The eyes of the LORD are in every place, watching the harm and the good.Proverbs joins the LORD’s eyes directly to the seeing of evil and good, echoing both “in the sight of the LORD” and “evil” in this verse. It makes explicit that Jehoiakim’s conduct is seen wherever he stands.
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