What Does 2 Chronicles 8:3 Mean?
And Solomon went to Hamathzobah and gripped it.
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 Solomon went to Hamath-zobah, and prevailed against it.THE KEY
A name rooted in shalom stands beside a verb rooted in taking hold: this verse places wholeness and conquest in the same line.
THE MEANING
Solomon’s name carries shalom, wholeness, while his action is to prevail against a city. Here, wholeness stands beside the force of conquest, and the verse leaves that tension visible.
THE ROOT
וַיֶּחֱזַק
wayyeḥĕzaq
GROWS FROM
חזק
To be strong or firm; to strengthen, take hold, or prevail.
“gripped it” in this verse is wayyeḥĕzaq. The root behind “prevailed” also describes strengthening and taking hold. The word carries the pressure of force gripping its object; here that force is directed against Hamath-zobah.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāzaq: Be strong; prevail.
חָזַק
This is the same root as the verb in the verse, showing that prevailing is an expression of strength.
ḥizzēq: Strengthen; make firm.
חִזֵּק
This branch shows the root’s force can also steady or reinforce, not only overcome.
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shelomoh
GROWS FROM
שלם
To be whole, complete, or intact.
Solomon’s name is formed from the root of shalom, wholeness. The verse places that name beside an act of conquest, holding wholeness and force together without making them identical.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness; well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
This is the familiar branch of the root carried in Solomon’s name.
shalem: Whole; complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the root’s sense of intactness explicit beneath the name.
THE PATTERN
חזק (ḥazaq) names force that takes hold: it can strengthen, prevail, or harden, depending on what it grips.
And Jonathan, Saul's son, rose and went to David into the thicket, and strengthened his hand in God.And the LORD strengthened the heart of the Great House, king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children of Israel, and the children of Israel went out with a lifted hand.Hold fast and be firm, for you will place this people in the land as their portion, the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.THE THREAD
And Jonathan, Saul's son, rose and went to David into the thicket, and strengthened his hand in God.“Strengthened” is from חזק (ḥazaq), the same root translated “prevailed” here. In one verse the force takes hold of a city; in the other, it steadies a friend’s hand.
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