What Does 2 Kings 15:7 Mean?
So Azariah lay down with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David, and Jotham his son reigned in his place.
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
So Azariah slept with his fathers; and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David: and Jotham his son reigned in his stead.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “reigned” shares its root with “king” and “kingdom,” making the transfer of kingship visible beneath the line about a son taking his father’s place.
THE MEANING
Death closes a person’s season, but what they have carried can continue in another’s hands. Jotham takes up the reign after Azariah is laid among his fathers; the ending is real, and so is what moves beyond it. The verse speaks to you now: what passes from your life may continue through those who receive it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that when a person’s reign ends, the line and work must end with that person.
THE ROOT
וַיִּמְלֹךְ
wayyimlokh
GROWS FROM
מלך
to rule as king; to exercise kingship
“reigned” in this verse is wayyimlokh. The verb belongs to the same seed as “king” and “kingdom”: Hebrew ties the ruler, the act of ruling, and the office together. Jotham does not merely appear after Azariah; the same kingship enters a new holder.
ALSO GROWS
melekh: king
מֶלֶךְ
The king is one expression of the root that also names the act of reigning.
malkhut: kingdom; kingship
מַלְכוּת
The office outlasts its holder and can pass from one person to another.
וַיִּשְׁכַּב
wayyishkav
GROWS FROM
שכב
to lie down
“lay down with his fathers” in this verse is wayyishkav. The phrase “slept with his fathers” keeps the image of lying down and places Azariah among those who came before him. Death is real, yet the wording locates it within a continuing family line.
ALSO GROWS
mishkav: bed; place for lying down
מִשְׁכָּב
It preserves the physical image behind the verse’s language of sleep.
shokhev: one who lies down
שֹׁכֵב
It echoes the action that frames death here as a laying down among one’s fathers.
דָּוִד
Dawid
GROWS FROM
דוד
beloved; dear one
The burial place bears David’s name, whose root carries belovedness. The verse places death and succession within a name that speaks of belonging, alongside the words about fathers and family.
ALSO GROWS
dod: beloved; dear one
דּוֹד
This is the name’s root sense, carried into “the city of David.”
dodim: loves; expressions of love
דּוֹדִים
The related word carries the same root into the language of love and attachment.
THE PATTERN
A human office ends with its holder’s death, while the work of that office moves into another life.
Then Solomon settled upon the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was set very firm.For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, and was laid beside his fathers, and saw decay.And they truly were many priests, for death held them back from remaining.THE THREAD
Then Solomon settled upon the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was set very firm.The word “kingdom” here is מַלְכוּת (malkhut, kingdom or kingship), from the same מלך (malak, reign or exercise kingship) root as “reigned” in this verse. The shared root makes the transfer visible: one ruler’s turn ends, while kingship carries forward in another.
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