What Does 2 Kings 14:7 Mean?
He struck down ten thousand of Edom in the Valley of Salt, and took Selah in war, and called its name Joktheel to this day.
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 slew of Edom in the valley of salt ten thousand, and took Selah by war, and called the name of it Joktheel unto this day.THE KEY
The conqueror takes Selah twice: first by force, then by replacing the name through which the rock is known.
THE MEANING
This verse puts bodies and naming in the same frame: ten thousand are slain, Selah is taken, and its name is changed. The violence reaches beyond territory; the place is made to carry the conqueror’s chosen account of what it is. Edom’s name carries the color red, an echo the English proper name leaves hidden.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a name is a neutral label: here, renaming follows conquest and helps make the conquest last in memory.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְרָא
wayyiqrāʾ
GROWS FROM
ק־ר־א
q-r-ʾ
Call, proclaim, name; also read aloud.
“called” in this verse is wayyiqrāʾ. The same root holds calling, naming, and reading: speaking a name can become the account through which a place is read. Here the new name follows a violent seizure, carrying the conqueror’s claim forward.
ALSO GROWS
qārāʾ: To call, name, proclaim, or read aloud.
קָרָא
The verb makes the renaming an audible act that gives the captured place a new public identity.
miqrāʾ: A reading or a called assembly.
מִקְרָא
This branch shows how calling can gather people around a shared account, just as the new name can shape how the place is remembered.
אֱדוֹם
ʾĔdôm
GROWS FROM
א־ד־ם
ʾ-d-m
Red, redness.
Edom’s name carries “red,” sharing consonants with words for the human and the ground. The English proper name hides this color-and-ground resonance in a verse where people are slain and a place is seized.
ALSO GROWS
ʾādōm: Red or ruddy.
אָדֹם
This is the color carried in Edom’s name, surfacing beneath the English proper noun.
ʾādām: A human being or person.
אָדָם
Its shared consonants link the people named Edom to a word for the human.
ʾădāmāh: Ground or soil.
אֲדָמָה
This branch adds the ground beneath the scene to the red-and-human resonance of Edom’s name.
סֶלַע
selaʿ
GROWS FROM
ס־ל־ע
s-l-ʿ
Rock, cliff, crag.
Selah names a rock or cliff. The place’s solid nature remains even as its name changes, so the verse holds physical terrain and imposed identity together.
ALSO GROWS
selaʿ: A rock or cliff.
סֶלַע
The place-name itself carries the physical nature of the site that is taken.
selaʿim: Rocks or cliffs.
סְלָעִים
The plural keeps the image concrete: Selah is terrain, not only a name to be replaced.
THE PATTERN
A name spoken after a struggle can become the lasting account by which a person or place is known.
Now therefore gather the rest of the people together, and camp against the city, and take it, lest I take the city and my name be called upon it.And the nations shall see your alignment, and all kings your weight; and you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name.The one who has an ear, let him hear and respond to what the breath says to the assemblies. To the one who overcomes I will give to eat from the hidden manna, and I will give him a white pebble, and upon the pebble a new name written, which no one knows except the one who takes it.THE THREAD
And the nations shall see your alignment, and all kings your weight; and you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name.Both verses use the same Hebrew verb for calling and naming. In 2 Kings, the conqueror speaks a new name after seizing Selah; in Isaiah, the mouth of the LORD names the new identity, revealing that who speaks the name matters.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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