What Does 2 Kings 12:12 Mean?
And to the wall-builders, and to the hewers of stone, and to buy timber and hewn stone to strengthen the broken places of the house of the LORD, and for all that went out for the house, to strengthen 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 to masons, and hewers of stone, and to buy timber and hewed stone to repair the breaches of the house of the LORD, and for all that was laid out for the house to repair it.THE KEY
The verb beneath “repair” means “strengthen”: the breach is where the house is made firm.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s house is restored through tangible work: stone is hewn, timber is bought, and resources are directed to strengthen its breaches. The damaged place is named as the place receiving skilled labor and material. Repair means the house becoming firm where it has weakened.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that repair requires concealing the break: the breach is named openly and receives the work.
THE ROOT
לְחַזֵּק
ləḥazzēq to strengthen
GROWS FROM
חזק
ḥ-z-q
To be strong or firm; in this verb form, to strengthen.
“strengthen” in this verse is ləḥazzēq to strengthen. English “repair” can sound like making a defect disappear; the Hebrew verb carries the action of strengthening. The breach is not hidden from the work: the house is made firm where it has weakened.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāzaq: To be strong, grow firm, or prevail.
חָזַק
The house’s repair grows from the same root as becoming strong.
ḥizzēq: To strengthen or fortify.
חִזֵּק
This form makes explicit the strengthening carried by “repair” in the verse.
חֹצְבֵי
ḥōtzəvē maḥtzēv
GROWS FROM
חצב
ḥ-ṣ-b
To cut, hew, or quarry.
“hewers of stone” in this verse is ḥōtzəvē maḥtzēv. English gives a crew and a supply; Hebrew echoes the same root in “hewers” and “hewed stone.” The material carries the action of the hands that prepare it: the repair is shaped through their work.
ALSO GROWS
ḥōtzēv: A person who hews or quarries stone.
חֹצֵב
This names the workers by the action that prepares the building material.
maḥtzēv: A quarry or stone cut from one.
מַחְצֵב
The same root links the workers’ cutting to the stone supplied for the repair.
THE PATTERN
God’s dwelling is sustained through human work that builds and strengthens it.
So the makers of the work made, and the work went up by their hands, and they stood the house of God on its footing, and strengthened it.So we built the wall, and all the wall was tied together to half of it, for the people had heart to work.For we are fellow workers with God. You are God's field; you are God's building.THE THREAD
And he gathered together the priests and the Levites, and said to them, Go out to the cities of Judah, and gather money from all Israel to strengthen the house of your God year by year, and see that you hurry the matter. But the Levites did not hurry it.The same strengthening verb, לְחַזֵּק (ləḥazzēq, “to strengthen”), names the repair in both verses. This companion verse names the money gathered for the work; 2 Kings 12:12 traces that provision into timber, quarried stone, and labor at the breach.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us