What Does 2 Kings 17:28 Mean?
Then one of the priests whom they had stripped bare from Samaria came and settled in Bethel, and trained them how they should stand in awe of the LORD.
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
Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Beth-el, and taught them how they should fear the LORD.THE KEY
The word for “taught” grows from a root meaning to point or shoot, so awe of the LORD is presented as a direction a teacher can show.
THE MEANING
You meet a teacher who comes among the people and stays, teaching them how to stand in awe of the LORD. Awe is not left as a vague feeling; it has a way that can be learned.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that awe of God must arrive as an instinct: this verse presents it as something that can be taught.
THE ROOT
מוֹרֶה
moreh
GROWS FROM
ירה
yarah
To throw or shoot; by extension, to point or direct.
“trained” in this verse is moreh. The word translated “taught” comes from a root with the sense of pointing or directing. Teaching, then, carries an image of aiming attention and showing a way toward understanding.
ALSO GROWS
torah: Instruction or teaching.
תּוֹרָה
From the same root, it shows that teaching can offer direction for a way of life.
yarah: To shoot or cast; by extension, to direct.
יָרָה
This concrete sense lets you hear instruction as something that points the learner toward a way of standing in awe.
יִירְאוּ
yirʾu
GROWS FROM
ירא
yare
To fear, revere, or stand in awe; with the LORD as its object, the word can carry the sense of awe.
“stand in awe of” in this verse is yirʾu. The word can name fear, reverence, or awe, and here it is something the people are taught how to embody. The verse gives awe a direction: toward the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
yirʾah: Awe, reverence, or fear.
יִרְאָה
The noun form shows the quality being taught: a stance of awe toward the LORD.
noraʾ: Awe-inspiring or fearsome.
נוֹרָא
This form names what evokes awe, echoing the verse’s link between the learner’s response and the LORD.
THE PATTERN
Awe of the LORD is learned through instruction that directs attention and practice.
Come, children, and hear and respond to me. I train you in the awe of the LORD.And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn in awe of the LORD his God, to guard all the words of this instruction and these statutes, to do them.THE THREAD
Come, children, and hear and respond to me. I train you in the awe of the LORD.Psalm 34 uses the same root, ירא (yare, “to fear or stand in awe”), and makes the act of teaching explicit. Together, the verses show awe as a learned orientation that a teacher can point out.
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