What Does 2 Kings 14:2 Mean?
He was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem.
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
He was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem.THE KEY
The reign is measured in years, but the verse closes by giving its human center a name that carries delight.
THE MEANING
A public life is never only its years in office: it is held in a human line, and the mother’s name remains part of its record. Jehoaddan carries the sense “YHWH delights,” placing delight beside the measured years and the city named for wholeness.
THE ROOT
יְהוֹעַדָּן
Yehoaddan
GROWS FROM
עדן
ʿ-d-n
Delight, pleasure, or luxurious abundance.
“Jehoaddan” in this verse is Yehoaddan. The name joins YHWH to the language of delight, so the mother’s name carries more than identity: it evokes delight as part of the family line held in the record. English preserves the name but leaves its meaning quiet.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeden: Delight; abundance.
עֵדֶן
The same root is heard in Eden, letting Jehoaddan’s name echo the language of delight.
maʿadannim: Delicacies; rich or delightful things.
מַעֲדַנִּים
This branch shows the root extending from delight into what is enjoyed, deepening the sense carried by the name.
מָלַךְ
malakh
GROWS FROM
מלך
m-l-k
To rule or reign.
“reigned” in this verse is malakh. The root links the act of reigning with the words for king and kingdom. English separates those forms, while Hebrew holds the ruler, the act of ruling, and the realm within one word family; here that rule is bounded by years and situated in Jerusalem.
ALSO GROWS
melekh: King.
מֶלֶךְ
The person who reigns belongs to the same root as the act named in the verse.
malkhut: Kingdom; kingship.
מַלְכוּת
The root reaches from one ruler’s action to the realm and authority that action shapes.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole, complete, or sound.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The Hebrew name Yerushalayim carries the sound of shalom, wholeness. The verse locates the years of rule in a city whose name holds that resonance, placing measured authority within a name of wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness; completeness.
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch makes the wholeness carried in Yerushalayim audible.
shalem: Whole; complete; sound.
שָׁלֵם
This branch shows the root describing a state of completeness, alongside the city name’s echo of shalom.
THE PATTERN
Scripture keeps public identity tethered to the named human lineage and place through which it appears.
Three years reigned he in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years old, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, who was the son of Heli.THE THREAD
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he set Adam, whom he had shaped.Jehoaddan’s final element is commonly related to ʿeden, “delight.” Genesis uses Eden as the name of the garden, carrying that same root into a place-name and letting the brief maternal name in Kings echo the language of delight.
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