What Does 2 Chronicles 8:17 Mean?
Then Solomon went to Ezion-geber, and to Eloth, on the lip of the sea in the land of Edom.
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
Then went Solomon to Ezion-geber, and to Eloth, at the sea side in the land of Edom.THE KEY
Solomon’s name carries wholeness, while Edom shares its root with “red,” Adam, and ground, so a travel notice becomes a meeting of name and landscape.
THE MEANING
The verse places Solomon at the seashore in Edom, whose name means “red” and shares its consonant root with אָדָם (adam, human) and אֲדָמָה (adamah, ground). As you read, the route gathers a person, the ground, and the water’s edge into one scene instead of leaving the destination as a bare coordinate.
THE ROOT
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shelomoh
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ם
sh-l-m
Be whole; complete.
Solomon’s name grows from a root of wholeness and completion. In a verse about movement, the name keeps that wholeness attached to the traveler rather than reducing him to a bare label.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, welfare
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar word for wholeness carries the same root gathered into Solomon’s name.
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This form makes the root’s sense of completeness explicit.
אֱדוֹם
Edom
GROWS FROM
א־ד־ם
ʾ-d-m
Be red; become ruddy.
Edom’s name carries the red root אדם, also present in אָדָם (adam, human) and אֲדָמָה (adamah, ground). English preserves the place-name, while Hebrew lets the sound of redness, humanity, and ground travel together.
ALSO GROWS
adom: Red
אָדֹם
This is the direct color word that the place-name preserves.
adam: Human, person
אָדָם
The human name shares this root, giving the land-name an echo of humanity.
adamah: Ground, soil
אֲדָמָה
This ground word brings the root’s earth association into the landscape.
THE PATTERN
Scripture’s names carry the nature they gather, making a name part of the scene’s meaning.
And Esau said to Jacob, Let me swallow, please, some of this red, red stew, for I am faint. Therefore his name was called Edom, the red one.And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.And she will bring forth a son, and you will call his name Jesus, the LORD's deliverance, for he will deliver his people from their missing.THE THREAD
And Esau said to Jacob, Let me swallow, please, some of this red, red stew, for I am faint. Therefore his name was called Edom, the red one.This verse makes the color held in Edom’s name explicit: Esau’s red food becomes the naming word. In 2 Chronicles, the same name carries that red echo into the landscape Solomon reaches.
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