What Does 2 Kings 15:18 Mean?
And he did what was broken in the eyes of the LORD. All his days he did not turn aside from the shortcomings of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who made Israel miss the mark.
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 he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD: he departed not all his days from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.THE KEY
The same root names both Jeroboam’s “sins” and his power to make Israel “sin”: one person’s missing becomes a path others follow.
THE MEANING
A pattern is measured not only by whether you leave it, but by what it teaches others to repeat. One person’s continued missing can become the way a whole community misses. The verse speaks now wherever a repeated pattern shapes a shared life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a repeated failure is private: a pattern can lead a whole community into the same missing.
THE ROOT
חַטֹּאות
chatta’ot
GROWS FROM
חטא
To miss, fail, or incur guilt; here, missing.
“shortcomings” in this verse is chatta’ot. The noun “sins” and the verb “made Israel to sin” grow from the same root. The second form is causative: the missing does not stay with the one who repeats it, but draws others into it too.
ALSO GROWS
chata’: To miss or do wrong.
חָטָא
This verb names the missing that persists in the verse’s repeated pattern.
hecheti: To cause someone to miss or lead them into wrong.
הֶחֱטִיא
This causative form shows the pattern extending from one person to Israel.
THE PATTERN
A repeated misalignment can become a pattern others inherit.
And he shall give Israel over because of the shortcomings of Jeroboam, who missed the mark and who caused Israel to miss the mark.But whoever causes one of these little ones who lean their weight into me to stumble, it is better for him that a donkey's millstone be hung about his neck, and that he be sunk down into the deep of the sea.But watch, lest somehow this right of yours become a stone for the weak to stumble over.THE THREAD
And he shall give Israel over because of the shortcomings of Jeroboam, who missed the mark and who caused Israel to miss the mark.The Hebrew root חטא (chata’, “miss”) appears in both the noun for Jeroboam’s sins and the verb for making Israel sin. The repeated root makes the connection plain: his own missing becomes the missing he leads others into.
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