What Does 2 Kings 2:24 Mean?
And he turned his face back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the nature of the LORD. And two bears came out of the forest, and split open forty-two of the children.
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 he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.THE KEY
The verse binds the LORD’s nature to a spoken curse, then places the tearing of forty-two children directly after it.
THE MEANING
You encounter a curse spoken in the LORD’s name, followed by two she-bears tearing forty-two children. The verse gives no pause to explain the violence or soften what the bodies undergo.
THE ROOT
וַיְקַלְלֵם
wayqallelēm
GROWS FROM
קלל
To be light or slight; in the intensive form, to make light of, treat with contempt, or curse.
English “cursed” hides a root whose range includes making light of someone or treating them with contempt. Here that spoken contempt is followed by grave bodily harm, while the verse leaves the relation between them stark and unexplained.
ALSO GROWS
qal: Light, slight.
קַל
This branch reveals the root’s sense of lightness beneath the curse: the speech treats its target with contempt.
qĕlālāh: Curse, cursing.
קְלָלָה
This noun carries the same root into the curse itself, showing that the word Elisha speaks belongs to a wider family of contemptuous speech.
וַתְּבַקַּעְנָה
vattevaqqaʿnāh
GROWS FROM
בקע
To split, cleave, or break open.
“split open” in this verse is vattevaqqaʿnāh. The English “tare” can sound like ordinary tearing, while the underlying verb means to split or cleave open. Its use for divided waters and split ground gives the violence a rupture-like force; those other uses do not make the harm gentler.
ALSO GROWS
wayyibbāqəʿū: They were split open; used of the waters being divided (Exodus 14:21).
וַיִּבָּקְעוּ
The same root describes a division forced through a body of water, showing its vivid sense of something being opened apart.
vattibbāqa: It split apart; used of the ground splitting (Numbers 16:31).
וַתִּבָּקַע
The same verb for ground splitting makes the root’s physical force clear: it names a rupture, not a mild scrape.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats blessing and cursing as consequential speech, not empty wording.
And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the ground will be blessed.Go now, I ask you, curse this people for me; for they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I will be able to strike them and drive them out of the land, for I know that the one you bless is blessed, and the one you curse is cursed.With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who have been made according to the likeness of God.THE THREAD
And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the ground will be blessed.The verb translated “cursed” here and “curseth” in Genesis share קלל (q-l-l), whose range includes “be light” and “treat with contempt.” Genesis places the same root within a blessing-and-curse relation, clarifying the force of Elisha’s speech while leaving the violence that follows unresolved.
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