What Does 2 Kings 10:32 Mean?
In those days the LORD began to cut Israel short, and Hazael struck them in all the borders of Israel.
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
In those days the LORD began to cut Israel short: and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel;THE KEY
“Cut Israel short” and “smote them in all the coasts” make the loss of a people’s space concrete: the blows reach every boundary.
THE MEANING
This verse names constriction that reaches every edge: Israel’s space is cut back, and the blows come across its whole border. The LORD’s action and Hazael’s violence stand together in the sentence, without making the violence less real.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that divine rule guarantees a life without violence: the verse names the LORD’s cutting back and Hazael’s assault in the same sentence.
THE ROOT
לְקַצּוֹת
ləqaṣṣōṯ
GROWS FROM
קצה
Cut off, cut short; reduce.
“cut Israel short” in this verse is ləqaṣṣōṯ. The verb qatsah (קָצָה, cut off or shorten) belongs to the same word family as qetseh (קָצֶה, edge or extremity). That link makes the reduction spatial: what is cut short is Israel’s reach or extent.
ALSO GROWS
qāṣāh: Cut off; cut short.
קָצָה
This verb names the reduction directly, making the phrase more than a general decline.
qāṣeh: Edge; extremity; end.
קָצֶה
This related word brings the idea of an edge into the cutting back of Israel’s territory.
וַיַּכֵּם
wayyakēm
GROWS FROM
נכה
Strike, hit, smite.
The verb nakah (נָכָה, strike) names physical violence. Its family includes makkah (מַכָּה, a blow or plague) and mukkeh (מֻכֶּה, one who has been struck), making the force behind the territorial loss concrete.
ALSO GROWS
makkāh: Blow; plague.
מַכָּה
This noun names the blow as an event, echoing the force of Hazael’s attack.
mukkēh: One who has been struck or wounded.
מֻכֶּה
This form turns the action toward those who receive the blows, keeping the verse’s violence in view.
THE PATTERN
Scripture renders constriction as a loss of room at the borders, and deliverance as the return of room to live.
He will press against you in all your gates until your high and fenced walls go down, the walls in which you are leaning your full weight, throughout all your land. He will press against you in all your gates, throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you.For days will come upon you, when your enemies will drive stakes around you, and surround you, and press you in on every side.From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.THE THREAD
From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.The Hebrew word metsar (מֵצַר, a narrow or tight place) names distress as constriction; the psalm’s answer is merchav (מֶרְחָב, a broad place). That spatial reversal opens this verse’s loss of room onto the larger movement from constriction toward spaciousness, while leaving its violence fully named.
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