What Does 2 Kings 17:24 Mean?
And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and set them in the cities of Samaria in place of the children of Israel. They possessed Samaria and settled in its cities.
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 the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof.THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind “possessed” also forms the verb “dispossess,” binding the newcomers’ arrival to the removal of the people who lived there before.
THE MEANING
This verse holds occupation and removal in the same frame: one people is settled into Samaria’s cities “instead of” the children of Israel, then described as possessing Samaria. The newcomers’ dwelling is real, and so is the displacement written into the sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that possession is a neutral fact about who occupies a place now: the sentence names the displacement that made the new occupancy possible.
THE ROOT
וַיִּרְשׁוּ
wayyirshu
GROWS FROM
יָרַשׁ
yārash
to take possession or inherit; in a causative form, to dispossess or drive out
The root יָרַשׁ (yārash, to take possession or inherit) also forms the verb הוֹרִישׁ (hôrîš, to dispossess or drive out). English gives the new occupants the outcome, “possessed Samaria,” while the Hebrew word-family keeps acquisition and removal connected.
ALSO GROWS
hôrîš: to dispossess or drive out
הוֹרִישׁ
This causative form shows the removal that can accompany taking possession.
môrāšâ: inheritance or possession
מוֹרָשָׁה
It carries the same root into the thing received, showing how inheritance and dispossession belong to one word-family.
וַיּוֹשֶׁב
wayyoshev
GROWS FROM
יָשַׁב
yāshav
to sit, settle, dwell, or remain
The verse uses the same root יָשַׁב (yāshav, to settle or dwell) first for placing the newcomers and then for their dwelling in the cities. The movement from installation to settled habitation sits inside one root, making the replacement endure as ordinary residence.
ALSO GROWS
yōshēv: an inhabitant or resident
יוֹשֵׁב
A person who dwells in the cities becomes an inhabitant through the same root that describes settling people there.
mōshāv: a dwelling place or settlement
מוֹשָׁב
The root extends from the act of dwelling to the place where people settle.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats possession of land as a transfer among peoples, and that transfer can involve dispossession, violence, or promised inheritance.
And you shall dispossess the land, and settle in it, for I have given you the land to take hold of it.They covet fields and tear them away, and houses, and carry them off. So they press a man and his house, even a man and his inheritance.Flourishing are the bowed, for they inherit the earth.THE THREAD
And you shall speak to him, saying, Thus says the LORD, Have you killed, and also taken hold? And you shall speak to him, saying, Thus says the LORD, In the place where dogs lapped the blood of Naboth, dogs shall lap your blood, even yours.The Hebrew root behind “possessed” appears here as “taken possession,” directly beside “Hast thou killed.” The echo opens what “instead of” leaves compressed: a place can change hands through the removal of the person who held it.
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