What Does 2 Kings 10:34 Mean?

Now the rest of the words of Jehu, and all that he did, and all his strength, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel?

2 Kings 10:34 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Now the rest of the acts of Jehu, and all that he did, and all his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?

THE KEY

The Hebrew calls the chronicle “the words of the days”: Jehu’s deeds and might become part of an account that can be read.

THE MEANING

The verse holds your actions and your strength in the same field of view. It pictures what you do as something that can be put into words and revisited after the moment has passed.

THE ROOT

דִּבְרֵי הַיָּמִים

divrei hayamim

GROWS FROM

דבר

To speak; word, matter, or affair.

“Chronicles” sounds like a formal archive, but the Hebrew phrase is “words of the days.” The record turns actions and might into language that can be read again.

ALSO GROWS

davar: Word, matter, or affair

דָּבָר

The root can name both words and matters; Jehu’s actions become matters carried in the account.

dibber: He spoke

דִּבֵּר

The chronicle preserves what happened by making it tellable.

עָשָׂה

asah

GROWS FROM

עשה

To do or make.

The phrase is literally “all that he did.” The same root names both doing and the work that results, so the record gathers Jehu’s deeds as things brought about.

ALSO GROWS

ma'aseh: Work or deed

מַעֲשֶׂה

The root turns an act into a deed that can be recounted.

asuy: Done or made

עָשׂוּי

What Jehu does becomes something completed and available to the record.

גְּבוּרָתוֹ

gevurato

GROWS FROM

גבר

To be strong or prevail.

The word for might grows from a root of strength and prevailing. Beside “all that he did,” it makes the account hold both Jehu’s actions and the force associated with him.

ALSO GROWS

gibbor: Mighty one or warrior

גִּבּוֹר

This branch makes the root’s association with strength concrete.

gever: Man, or a man in his strength

גֶּבֶר

The same root can describe the one who bears or exercises that strength.

THE PATTERN

Deeds can outlast their moment as words and records that others can revisit.

And the rest of the words of Jeroboam, how he fought and how he reigned, behold, they are written in the scroll of the words of the days of the kings of Israel.

1 Kings 14:19 · SDVJeroboam’s actions and rule are preserved in the same kind of written account.

Now the rest of the words of Hezekiah, and his faithful love, behold, they are written in the sight of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, and in the scroll of the kings of Judah and Israel.

2 Chronicles 32:32 · SDVHezekiah’s acts and goodness also become words recorded beyond the moments in which he lived them.

And I see the dead, small and great, standing before God. The scrolls are opened, and another scroll is opened, which is the book of life. The dead are judged by the things written in the scrolls, according to their works.

Revelation 20:12 · SDVThe opened books picture works preserved in writing and brought back into view.

THE THREAD

Great are the works of the LORD, sought out by all who delight in them.

Psalm 111:2 · SDV

“Did” in this verse and “works” here share the Hebrew root ⁨עשה⁩ (asah, “to do or make”). The same root frames Jehu’s actions as deeds that can be recounted, while the psalm’s works are things that can be sought out.

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