What Does 2 Chronicles 7:5 Mean?
And King Solomon slaughtered the sacrifice of the herd, twenty-two thousand oxen, and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of 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
And king Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty and two thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep: so the king and all the people dedicated the house of God.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for dedication also means initiation, so the house’s consecration is its entry into a purpose.
THE MEANING
The house enters its purpose through a vast offering and the shared act of the king and all the people. Dedication is a beginning carried by the whole community.
THE ROOT
וַיַּחֲנְכוּ
wayyaḥănĕḵû
GROWS FROM
חנך
to initiate, inaugurate, dedicate, or train
“dedicated” in this verse is wayyaḥănĕḵû. חנך carries dedication and initiation together: an act that begins a thing in its use. The same seed names the formation of a child, linking the house’s inauguration with a life being initiated into a way.
ALSO GROWS
ḥănukkāh: dedication, inauguration
חֲנֻכָּה
The same root names a dedication as a beginning that ushers something into its purpose.
ḥănōkh: initiate, train up (Proverbs 22:6)
חֲנֹךְ
The root also describes forming a child into a way, connecting the house’s initiation with the shaping of a life.
זֶבַח
zevaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
to slaughter or offer as a sacrifice
“sacrifice of the herd” in this verse is zevaḥ. The offering is bound to slaughter in the verb itself, while מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbēaḥ, altar) names the place of that act. The immense number of animals makes the house’s dedication visible in an act of costly giving.
ALSO GROWS
zāvaḥ: slaughter, offer as a sacrifice
זָבַח
The verb makes the sacrifice an enacted offering, not an abstract gesture.
mizbēaḥ: altar, place of sacrifice
מִזְבֵּחַ
The altar’s name shares the offering’s root, joining the act of sacrifice to the place where it happens.
THE PATTERN
A person or place is initiated into its purpose through a decisive beginning of formation or offering.
And the record-keepers shall speak to the people, saying, Who is the man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and turn back to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it.Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he grows old, he does not turn aside from it.Therefore I urge you, brothers, through the compassions of God, to set your bodies beside God as a living sacrifice, set apart, well-pleasing to him, which is your true service.THE THREAD
And the record-keepers shall speak to the people, saying, Who is the man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and turn back to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it.Both verses use חנך (ḥānaḵ, initiate or dedicate), a root that carries the sense of beginning a house in its use. Here the whole people dedicate God’s house; in Deuteronomy, a new home’s dedication marks a threshold in its builder’s life.
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