What Does 2 Kings 18:10 Mean?
And at the end of three years they seized it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was seized.
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 at the end of three years they took it: even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.THE KEY
The Hebrew names one capture twice: first through the attackers’ act, then through Samaria’s state.
THE MEANING
You are shown how a long interval can culminate in a decisive taking: three years pass, and Samaria is captured. The repeated capture language holds the attackers’ act and the city’s loss together, so the outcome is no longer a threat still in progress.
THE ROOT
וַיִּלְכְּדֻהָ
wayyilkedūhā
GROWS FROM
לכד
To capture, seize, or catch.
“seized” in this verse is wayyilkedūhā. The same root names the attackers’ action and Samaria’s resulting state: they capture; Samaria is captured. The active and passive forms bind agency and consequence into one event.
ALSO GROWS
wayyilkedūhā: They captured it.
וַיִּלְכְּדֻהָ
The active form names the people carrying out the capture.
nilkedah: It was captured.
נִלְכְּדָה
The passive form repeats the root with Samaria as the subject, making the capture its stated condition.
THE PATTERN
Capture marks the point when a threat or trap becomes an actual loss of freedom.
The nations sink into the pit they made; in the net they hid, their own foot is caught.And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he went further to seize Peter also. Then were the days of unleavened bread.THE THREAD
The nations sink into the pit they made; in the net they hid, their own foot is caught.The Hebrew word translated “taken” shares the root לכד (lakad, “capture”) with “was taken” in this verse. Here, the same root shows the captor’s intended trap becoming the captor’s own capture.
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