What Does 2 Kings 14:20 Mean?
And they lifted him onto horses, and he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in the city of David.
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 they brought him on horses: and he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in the city of David.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for “they brought him” shares its root with “prince”: the one elevated in rank is now carried by others.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks a truth that still holds: rank cannot make a person self-sufficient, and a body may reach its destination through others’ hands. The king is buried with his fathers in Jerusalem, whose name carries the sound of wholeness; the verse leaves the burial fully visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that being carried diminishes dignity falls away: even a king is borne by others and named among his fathers.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׂאוּהוּ
vayis'u-hu
GROWS FROM
נשא
lift, carry, bear
“lifted him onto horses” in this verse is vayis'u-hu. The verb holds the sense of lifting and bearing. נָשִׂיא (nasi, prince or ruler) shares this root: the elevated one and the one being lifted are held by the same seed, so rank does not remove dependence.
ALSO GROWS
nasi: prince, ruler, leader
נָשִׂיא
The shared root links elevated status with the act of lifting; here the king is physically borne by others.
massa: burden, load
מַשָּׂא
The same root can name what is carried, connecting the king’s journey with the wider image of bearing a weight.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
be whole, complete; make whole
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim carries the sound of שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness) with a dual ending: twofold wholeness. The place-name stands beside burial without erasing it, holding death and the language of wholeness in the same frame.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: wholeness
שָׁלוֹם
Its shared root lets the city’s name carry the language of wholeness into this verse.
shalem: whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the root’s sense of completeness audible in the name of the place where the king is buried.
THE PATTERN
When one cannot make the next movement alone, another can bear them onward.
You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I lifted you on the wings of eagles, and brought you to myself.Even to old age I AM, and to gray hair I will bear you. I have made, and I will lift, I will bear, and I will slip you free.So that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be filled, saying, He himself lifted our weaknesses and carried our sicknesses.THE THREAD
Surely he has borne our sicknesses, and carried our wounds. Yet we reckoned him struck, beaten by God, and bowed low.The Hebrew word translated “carried” in this verse and “borne” in Isaiah 53:4 comes from נשא (nasa, to lift, carry, bear). Here the verb carries a body; there it carries griefs, revealing how physical bearing and bearing a burden share one root.
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