What Does 2 Kings 16:20 Mean?
And Ahaz lay down with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David; and Hezekiah 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
And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David: and Hezekiah his son reigned in his stead.THE KEY
The verse places two Hebrew name-natures at a transfer of rule: אָחָז (ʾĀḥāz, “he grasps”) gives way to חִזְקִיָּהוּ (Ḥizqiyyāhû, “the LORD strengthens”).
THE MEANING
The verse holds two realities together: Ahaz is buried among his fathers, and Hezekiah reigns where he did. A person’s ending does not make every line of kinship, place, and responsibility around them vanish; continuity can come through another person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an ending must erase everything connected to the person who ends: Ahaz’s rule ends, while succession carries the throne onward.
THE ROOT
אָחָז
ʾĀḥāz
GROWS FROM
אחז
ʾ-ḥ-z
To grasp, seize, or take hold.
The name Ahaz carries the action of taking hold, not a neutral label. Here that name stands as his reign reaches its end and the kingship passes on, an image supplied by the name rather than an explicit judgment in the verse.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāḥaz: To seize or take hold.
אָחַז
This verbal form carries the same grasping action encoded in the name Ahaz.
ʾaḥuzzāh: A holding, possession, or property.
אֲחֻזָּה
The noun carries grasping into what is held or possessed, giving the name an echo of possession.
חִזְקִיָּהוּ
Ḥizqiyyāhû
GROWS FROM
חזק
ḥ-z-q
To be firm or strong; to strengthen.
Hezekiah’s name joins strength to the divine name, carrying the sense “the LORD strengthens.” The successor’s name sits beside Ahaz’s at the moment rule changes hands, letting their distinct name-natures sound together.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāzaq: To be strong or grow firm.
חָזַק
This verb holds the sense of strength present in Hezekiah’s name.
ḥizzēq: To strengthen or make firm.
חִזֵּק
This form expresses strength as something given or made firm, echoing the name’s sense that the LORD strengthens.
שָׁכַב
shākav
GROWS FROM
שכב
sh-k-b
To lie down.
“lay down” in this verse is shākav. The Hebrew verb holds the concrete posture of lying down beneath the English idiom “slept.” Joined with “his fathers,” it pictures death as joining one’s ancestral line, while the accompanying burial keeps the language anchored in the body and the grave.
ALSO GROWS
shōkhēv: One lying down; lying.
שֹׁכֵב
This form preserves the physical posture at the heart of the verse’s word for sleep.
mishkāv: A bed or place of lying down.
מִשְׁכָּב
This noun carries the same root into the place where one lies, keeping the image tangible.
THE PATTERN
A ruler’s death ends his tenure, while the office can pass to a successor.
And Rehoboam lay down with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead.So Uzziah lay down with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the field of the burial, which belonged to the kings; for they said, He is a leper; and Jotham his son reigned in his stead.And they truly were many priests, for death held them back from remaining. But this one, because he remains for the ages, holds a priesthood that does not step across to another.THE THREAD
But I will lie down with my fathers, and you shall lift me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying place. And he said, I will do according to your word.Jacob’s “I will lie with my fathers” uses the same root שָׁכַב (shākav, “lie down”) as “slept” here. The next words bind that lying to carrying him out and burying him among them, bringing death, kinship, and burial together.
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