What Does 2 Kings 13:15 Mean?
And Elisha said to him, Take the bow and the arrows. And he took to himself the bow and the arrows.
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 Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows.THE KEY
The command and the king’s hands echo one another: Hebrew uses the same root for “take” in both.
THE MEANING
A word reaches you at the hinge where it becomes tangible. Receiving is visible here: the spoken command takes shape in the king’s hands as bow and arrows.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a command is received merely by hearing it dissolves here: its reception takes visible form in the king’s hands.
THE ROOT
קַח
qaḥ wayyiqqaḥ
GROWS FROM
ל־ק־ח
l-q-ḥ
to take, receive, or grasp
“took to himself” in this verse is qaḥ wayyiqqaḥ. English lets “take” sound like a simple transfer, but ל־ק־ח also gives לֶקַח (leqaḥ), instruction, what is taken in, and מַלְקָחַיִם (malqaḥayim), tongs that take hold. Here the root joins receiving a word with grasping what it names: Elisha’s words become instruments in the king’s hands.
ALSO GROWS
leqaḥ: Instruction; teaching.
לֶקַח
The same root links taking the bow with taking instruction in; what is received can enter both understanding and hands.
malqaḥayim: Tongs; an instrument for grasping.
מַלְקָחַיִם
This branch makes the root’s sense of taking hold concrete, like the king taking hold of the bow and arrows.
THE PATTERN
A spoken word becomes visible through the concrete thing a person takes up or does.
And he said, Throw it to the ground. And he threw it to the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses fled from its face.And he said, Open the window toward the east. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the LORD's deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria, for you shall strike the Syrians at Aphek until you have finished them.And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.THE THREAD
And he said, Open the window toward the east. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the LORD's deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria, for you shall strike the Syrians at Aphek until you have finished them.The “arrows” taken here become “the arrow of the LORD’S deliverance” there; both use the Hebrew word חֵץ (ḥēṣ). The next verse reveals what the king has taken up: an instrument through which deliverance is made visible.
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