What Does 2 Chronicles 6:15 Mean?
You who have kept with your servant David my father what you promised him. You spoke also with your mouth, and have filled it with your hand, as it is this day.
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
Thou which hast kept with thy servant David my father that which thou hast promised him; and spakest with thy mouth, and hast fulfilled it with thine hand, as it is this day.THE KEY
God’s word does not stay sound: the hand fills it into the present.
THE MEANING
For you, the verse presents God’s word as something held and enacted: what is spoken is guarded and brought to fullness in what is done. David’s name, דָּוִד (Dawid, “beloved”), places this keeping within belovedness, and the hand gives the word visible form in the present day.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that God’s promises are only words, detached from action and completion.
THE ROOT
מִלֵּאתָ
mille'ta
GROWS FROM
מלא
To fill, be full, or bring to fullness.
“filled” in this verse is mille'ta. The verse’s verb is built on filling: the hand brings the spoken promise to fullness. Completion here has a tangible shape, bound to the image of the hand.
ALSO GROWS
male: Full; filled.
מָלֵא
Shows that the verb for completing God’s word belongs to the same word family as being full.
melo: Fullness or a full measure.
מְלֹא
The hand brings what was spoken into its full measure.
millu'im: Filling; installation or consecration.
מִלּוּאִים
This branch extends the root’s sense of filling into something being brought to its appointed completeness.
דִּבַּרְתָּ
dibarta
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; speech, word, or matter.
“spakest / promised” in this verse is dibarta. The verb for speaking shares its root with a word for a matter or thing. Hebrew holds the spoken word and the thing itself within one family, and this verse sets that speech beside the hand that fills it.
ALSO GROWS
davar: A word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The spoken promise and the matter it concerns share the same root.
dabber: Speak.
דַּבֵּר
This verbal branch keeps the focus on speech that can be followed by the hand’s completing action.
שָׁמַרְתָּ
shamarta
GROWS FROM
שמר
To keep, guard, or watch over.
“kept” in this verse is shamarta. Keeping carries the force of guarding or watching over what is entrusted. Fulfillment is continuous with preservation: what becomes complete has first been held.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: A keeper, guard, or watcher.
שֹׁמֵר
Shows that keeping is active care, not mere recollection.
mishmeret: A guard, watch, duty, or charge.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
Gives “kept” the sense of something maintained under watch.
THE PATTERN
What is spoken is watched over and brought into fullness through action.
There fell not one good word of all that the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all of it came.And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as he had spoken.And Flourishing is she who leaned her full weight, for there will be a completion of what was spoken to her from beside the LORD.THE THREAD
There fell not one good word of all that the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all of it came.The word “spoken” shares the root דבר (davar, speak; word or matter) with the speech in this verse. Joshua then says it all came to pass, opening the movement from the mouth’s word to the hand’s fulfillment.
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