What Does 2 Kings 11:17 Mean?
And Jehoiada cut a covenant between the LORD and the king and the people, that they should be the LORD's people; and between the king also and the people.
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 Jehoiada made a covenant between the LORD and the king and the people, that they should be the LORD’s people; between the king also and the people.THE KEY
The covenant makes the people the LORD’s and places the king inside a binding relationship with them.
THE MEANING
Belonging here runs in two directions: the people belong to the LORD, and the king is bound in covenant with the people. Authority lives within relationship; it is not presented as standing beyond the bond it governs.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a ruler’s authority places him outside mutual obligation: the king himself stands within covenant with the people.
THE ROOT
וַיִּכְרֹת
wayyikrot
GROWS FROM
כרת
To cut; in the covenant phrase, to cut a covenant.
“cut a covenant” in this verse is wayyikrot. The English “made” smooths over the word’s cutting image: this bond is enacted with a marked edge. The same root can describe cutting off, so the covenant carries the force of a decisive bond, not just an agreement named in passing.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: Enter or establish a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
This is the same cutting verb used in the verse, showing that covenant-making is expressed as an enacted bond.
yikkaret: Be cut off or removed.
יִכָּרֵת
The root’s language of cutting also marks severance; here it illuminates the covenant as a bond with a definite boundary.
THE PATTERN
Covenant makes belonging a shared bond that orders a people’s relationship with God and with one another.
And I will make my covenant stand between me and you, and your seed after you in their generations, for a covenant of the ages, to be God to you and to your seed after you.But this is the covenant I will cut with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will set my instruction within them, and write it upon their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.And what setting down together has the temple of God with images? For you are the temple of the living God, as God has said, "I will dwell in them, and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be my people."THE THREAD
On that day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.The verb translated “made” in both verses comes from כרת (karat, “cut”) and appears with “covenant.” That shared root lets the covenant read as an enacted bond that gives belonging a marked shape.
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