What Does 2 Kings 15:27 Mean?
In the fifty-second year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekah son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned twenty years.
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
In the two and fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned twenty years.THE KEY
Pekah’s name carries “open-eyed,” yet the verse gives his reign a measure of twenty years.
THE MEANING
Pekah’s name carries “open-eyed,” while his reign occupies a specific place, Samaria, and a stated span, twenty years. As you read, power has a face, a location, and a measure; it does not fill all of time.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the belief that political power is endless: even this reign is named and measured.
THE ROOT
פֶּקַח
Pəqaḥ
GROWS FROM
פקח
p-q-ḥ
To open, especially the eyes.
Pekah’s name grows from פקח (p-q-ḥ), “to open,” especially the eyes. Its related form for “clear-sighted” keeps the result beside the action: in this name, seeing is active opening.
ALSO GROWS
paqach: To open, especially the eyes.
פָּקַח
This verb carries the action inside Pekah’s name.
piqqēaḥ: Clear-sighted; one who sees.
פִּקֵּחַ
This related form names the sight that opening makes possible.
THE PATTERN
Human rule lasts for a bounded season, while the setting and removal of rulers exceed any ruler’s own span.
And he changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and raises up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to those who know understanding.And he made from one blood every nation of humankind to settle upon all the face of the earth, marking out their fitted seasons and setting the boundary stones of their dwelling.Do not lean your weight on the openhanded, nor on the son of man, who holds no deliverance.THE THREAD
To open blind eyes, to bring the prisoners out of the prison, and those who settle in darkness out of the prison house.Pekah’s name grows from פקח (p-q-ḥ), “to open, especially the eyes”; Isaiah uses that same root for opening blind eyes. The shared root lets the name carry an action of opened sight that the English name alone does not show.
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