What Does 2 Kings 10:25 Mean?
And it came to pass, as soon as he had finished drawing near with the rising offering, that Jehu said to the runners and to the captains, Go in and strike them down; let none come out. And they struck them with the mouth of the sword; and the runners and the captains threw them out, and went to the city of the house of Baal.
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 it came to pass, as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, Go in, and slay them; let none come forth. And they smote them with the edge of the sword; and the guard and the captains cast them out, and went to the city of the house of Baal.THE KEY
The offering reaches its final moment, and the sword becomes the next mouth in the scene.
THE MEANING
You are shown a religious rite ending at the exact instant a leader commands slaughter. The guards strike the people with swords, cast them out, and continue to the city of Baal’s house; ceremony and organized killing occupy the same scene. The verse keeps the violence explicit and bodily.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A completed religious rite makes the violence that follows clean or invisible. Here the offering ends, and the slaughter is stated plainly.
THE ROOT
עֹלָה
ʿolah
GROWS FROM
עלה
rise, go up, ascend
“rising offering” in this verse is ʿolah. עֹלָה (ʿolah, burnt offering) names what rises. The sentence places the end of that ascent immediately before Jehu’s command, keeping the rite and the killing in one uninterrupted scene.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: to rise, go up
עָלָה
The verb makes the upward movement inside the offering’s name visible.
ʿaliyyah: ascent, going up
עֲלִיָּה
This related noun preserves the same root of rising, showing the motion carried by עֹלָה (ʿolah, burnt offering).
הַכּוּם
hakkum
GROWS FROM
נכה
strike, hit
“strike them down” in this verse is hakkum. The command translated slay and the following report translated smote both use forms of נכה (nakah, strike). The repeated root carries the blow from order to execution, then the verse names the sword as its instrument.
ALSO GROWS
makkah: a blow, wound, or plague
מַכָּה
This noun shows how the root’s act of striking can name the injury it leaves.
hikkah: struck, hit
הִכָּה
This verb form is the same striking action repeated in the guards’ execution of the command.
חֶרֶב
cherev
GROWS FROM
חרב
become dry or desolate; lay waste
“mouth of the sword” in this verse is cherev. The word חֶרֶב (cherev, sword) shares its consonants with חָרַב (charav, be laid waste). The phrase לְפִי־חֶרֶב (lefi cherev) is literally by the mouth of a sword, so the command’s human voice is followed by the sword’s mouth.
ALSO GROWS
charav: to become desolate, be laid waste
חָרַב
This verb carries the desolation associated with the sword’s root.
choravot: ruins, desolations
חֳרָבוֹת
This noun shows the devastation named by the same consonants as חֶרֶב (cherev, sword).
THE PATTERN
Religious performance cannot conceal the violence or death that occurs alongside it.
When you spread your palms, I will shut my eyes to you. Even when you multiply your prayers, I will not hear and respond. Your hands are filled with blood.For I delight in faithful love and not slaughter, and the knowledge of God more than the ascending offerings.Woe to you, writers and separated ones, masked ones! For you are like plastered tombs, which indeed appear beautiful on the outside, but within are full of the bones of the dead and of all uncleanness.THE THREAD
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall set right many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they train for war anymore.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew word חֶרֶב (cherev, sword) found here, but shows swords being beaten into tools for cultivation. The shared word places this killing beside an image of violence materially transformed, without softening what Jehu’s command does in this verse.
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