What Does 2 Kings 18:25 Mean?
And have I now come up without the LORD against this place to ruin it? The LORD said to me, Go up against this land, and ruin it.
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
Am I now come up without the LORD against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.THE KEY
The threat borrows the LORD’s voice, making the promise of ruin sound like a command from God.
THE MEANING
The verse places a claimed word from the LORD beside a command to destroy. That pairing still reveals how invoking sacred authority can make ruin sound inevitable.
THE ROOT
וְהַשְׁחִיתָהּ
vehashchitah
GROWS FROM
שחת
shachat
To ruin, corrupt, or spoil.
“ruin it” in this verse is vehashchitah. English presents a single act of destruction, while שחת (shachat) also names corruption and ruin. The same root describes the earth as corrupt in Genesis 6:11, joining outward destruction to a deeper condition of ruin.
ALSO GROWS
vattishachet: Was corrupt.
וַתִּשָּׁחֵת
This form describes the earth in Genesis 6:11, showing that the root can name corruption as well as destruction.
hamashchit: The destroyer.
הַמַּשְׁחִית
This noun in Exodus 12:23 names an agent of destruction, extending the root from the act of ruin to the one who carries it out.
THE PATTERN
A claim to speak for God still requires discernment; the claim itself does not establish the message’s source.
But the prophet, who boils over to speak a word in my nature, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the nature of other gods, that one dies.Thus says the LORD of hosts, Do not hear and respond to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they make you vapor. They speak a sight of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.Beloved, do not lean your weight on every breath, but test the breaths, whether they come out of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.THE THREAD
The earth also was ruined before God, and the earth was filled with violence.The verb rendered destroy here and corrupt there comes from the same root, שחת (shachat). Its echo joins the threat of outward destruction with the root’s language of corruption and ruin.
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