What Does 2 Kings 18:15 Mean?
And Hezekiah gave him all the silver found in the house of the LORD and in the storehouses of the king's house.
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 Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasures of the king’s house.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for “gave” also means “put” or “set”: the silver is relocated from both the sacred house and the royal treasury into another’s hands.
THE MEANING
A demand can reach into what is held sacred and what is held as public wealth at once. Here, all the silver in both houses changes hands. “Gave” names the transfer without saying that the surrender is willing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that sacred wealth is automatically beyond a ruler’s reach.
THE ROOT
וַיִּתֵּן
vayyitten
GROWS FROM
נתן
To give, put, set, or grant.
“gave” in this verse is vayyitten. The root holds giving and placing together. Here, the silver is moved from two storehouses into another’s possession; the same root can also name a gift or grant.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, put, or set.
נָתַן
The dictionary form retains the concrete sense of placing something in another’s possession, making the silver’s movement visible beneath “gave.”
mattanah: Gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This gift noun grows from the same root, while the surrounding demand makes the cost of this particular transfer plain.
THE PATTERN
Imperial power can claim the temple store and the royal treasury in the same sweep.
So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the storehouses of the house of the LORD and the storehouses of the king's house. He took all, and he carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made.And he brought out from there all the storehouses of the house of the LORD, and the storehouses of the king's house, and cut all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, as the LORD had said.THE THREAD
But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to make strength, so that he may raise up his covenant, which he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.The Hebrew word translated “giveth” comes from the same root, נתן (n-t-n; natan), as “gave” here. Deuteronomy names the capacity to gain wealth as something given; this verse shows wealth being placed in another ruler’s hands.
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