What Does 2 Kings 17:39 Mean?
But the LORD your God you shall stand in awe of, and he shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.
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
But the LORD your God ye shall fear; and he shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.THE KEY
The one you stand in awe of is also the one who draws you out of the enemy’s grip.
THE MEANING
The LORD is the one you stand in awe of, and his power reaches into the grasp of your enemies to bring you out. Their hand is real, but it is not the final authority over you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that an enemy’s grip is final gives way to the verse’s claim that the LORD delivers you out of it.
THE ROOT
תִּירָאוּ
tira’u
GROWS FROM
ירא
To fear, revere, or stand in awe.
“stand in awe of” in this verse is tira’u. When this root is directed toward God, it opens English “fear” into awe. The verse places that awe alongside deliverance from the enemy’s grasp.
ALSO GROWS
yir’ah: Fear or awe.
יִרְאָה
This noun shows that the verse’s “fear” belongs to a wider language of awe before the LORD.
nora: Awesome or fearsome.
נוֹרָא
This related form describes what inspires awe, carrying the same root into the quality of the one revered.
יַצִּיל
yatsil
GROWS FROM
נצל
To draw away, strip off, rescue, or extract.
“deliver” in this verse is yatsil. The root carries a picture of extraction: being taken out of another’s hold. With the verse’s image of the enemy’s hand, deliverance means release from that grasp.
ALSO GROWS
yatsil: He rescues or delivers.
יַצִּיל
This is the verb used in the verse: the LORD brings you out of your enemies’ hand.
nitsal: Be rescued or escape.
נִצַּל
This form places the emphasis on the one who gets free from danger or capture.
natsal: Take away or strip off.
נָצַל
This usage makes the root’s shared idea of removal visible beneath the verse’s promise of deliverance.
THE PATTERN
Awe belongs to the LORD, while hostile power does not have the final word over those he delivers.
For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to deliver you.The messenger of the LORD encamps all around those in awe of him, and draws them out.That he would give us, having been brought out from the hand of our enemies, to serve him without fear,THE THREAD
He snatches me from my strong enemy and from my haters, for they are too firm for me.“Delivered” comes from the same Hebrew root, נצל, as “deliver” in 2 Kings 17:39. Psalm 18 makes the extraction vivid: the enemy is stronger, yet the speaker is drawn out of that grasp.
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