What Does 2 Kings 13:20 Mean?
And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the raiding bands of the Moabites came into the land as the year came in.
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 died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year.THE KEY
The same Hebrew root בוא (bōʾ, “come” or “enter”) names both the Moabite bands’ entry and the year’s arrival, binding the invasion to a returning season.
THE MEANING
The moment holds an ending and a recurring pressure together: אֱלִישָׁע (Elisha, “My God is deliverance”) is buried, yet Moab’s bands return as the year arrives. The death and renewed incursion stand side by side without the verse resolving their tension.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The end of a life means the returning pressure has ended.
THE ROOT
יָבֹאוּ
yāḇōʾû
GROWS FROM
בוא
To come or enter.
“came into the land as the year came in” in this verse is yāḇōʾû. The Hebrew repeats this root for the Moabite bands’ entry and the year’s arrival. The shared root makes the raid feel bound to a returning season, not like an isolated entrance.
ALSO GROWS
biʾāh: Entry, arrival.
בִּיאָה
This noun carries the same arrival sense heard in both comings in the verse.
māvōʾ: Entrance, approach.
מָבוֹא
It keeps attention on the point where a force enters a land.
גְּדוּדֵי
gedûdê
GROWS FROM
גדד
To gather as a troop; the root also carries the sense of cutting or making an incision.
“raiding bands” in this verse is gedûdê. The Hebrew גְּדוּד (gedûd, “band” or “troop”) returns in the next verse as another band appears during a burial. The root’s cutting sense adds an image of a force breaking into the land alongside the literal raid.
ALSO GROWS
gedûd: A troop or raiding band.
גְּדוּד
This is the noun used here and repeated for the band in the following verse.
gādad: To cut or make an incision; to gather in troops.
גָּדַד
Its cutting sense evokes the bands’ entry as a breach into the land.
אֱלִישָׁע
ʾĔlîšāʿ
GROWS FROM
ישע
To deliver, bring out from constriction toward spaciousness.
Elisha’s name carries the sense ‘My God is deliverance’ into a line about burial and renewed invasion. The following verse gives that name a startling echo when a dead man touches Elisha’s bones and lives.
ALSO GROWS
yēšaʿ: Deliverance, safety.
יֵשַׁע
It keeps deliverance present within the name beside the threat’s return.
yešūʿāh: Deliverance, rescue.
יְשׁוּעָה
This branch carries the movement out of danger that the name places beside the incursion.
THE PATTERN
A pressure can recur in its season while other events, including an ending, are still unfolding.
And it came to be, as they were burying a man, behold, they saw a raiding band of men, and they cast the man into the cave of Elisha. And when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he came to life, and stood up on his feet.All the days of the earth, sowing and reaping, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not stop.When the Slanderer had ended every testing, he stepped away from him until a fitting time.THE THREAD
And it came to be, as they were burying a man, behold, they saw a raiding band of men, and they cast the man into the cave of Elisha. And when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he came to life, and stood up on his feet.The Hebrew גְּדוּד (gedûd, “band”) appears again as another burial is underway. Then the dead man touches the bones of אֱלִישָׁע (Elisha, “My God is deliverance”), revives, and stands; the returning threat and startling life occupy one scene.
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