What Does 2 Kings 21:2 Mean?
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, after the abominations of the nations, whom the LORD drove out before the children of Israel.
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 did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.THE KEY
The verse’s sharpest irony is that a people standing in the place of inheritance can take up the practices of those dispossessed.
THE MEANING
Here, Manasseh’s action is measured by the LORD’s sight and by the pattern it follows: the abominations of nations already cast out. The verse speaks wherever a cleared-away pattern is imitated and becomes action again.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being removed from a place means a pattern is gone for good. The verse shows how that pattern can return through imitation, even after its former practitioners have been cast out.
THE ROOT
הוֹרִישׁ
hôrîš
GROWS FROM
ירש
To take possession or inherit; in the causative form here, to dispossess or drive out.
“drove out” in this verse is hôrîš. The Hebrew root can describe both taking possession and making another dispossessed. The verse places Israel’s inheritance beside the expelled nations, then shows Manasseh taking up their practices: removing a people does not ensure that their pattern is removed.
ALSO GROWS
yāraš: Possess, take possession, or inherit; the sense depends on the form and context.
יָרַשׁ
The root behind “cast out” also carries the language of possession and inheritance, placing the displaced nations and Israel’s inheritance in one word family.
hôrîš: Dispossess or drive out.
הוֹרִישׁ
This causative form names the removal in the verse and sharpens the contrast with Manasseh’s adoption of the removed nations’ practices.
yeruššāh: Inheritance or possession.
יְרֻשָּׁה
This noun makes the other side of the root visible: the land received as an inheritance is also where the old pattern can be taken up again.
תוֹעֲבֹת
toʿavot
GROWS FROM
תעב
To abhor or regard as abhorrent.
“abominations” in this verse is toʿavot. The word describes actions belonging to a class regarded as abhorrent, not merely customs that are unfamiliar. “After” shows Manasseh’s deeds taking their shape from that model, while “in the sight of the LORD” names whose judgment exposes it.
ALSO GROWS
tāʿav: To abhor or regard as detestable.
תָּעַב
The verb reveals the response carried inside the noun: these are practices regarded as abhorrent.
toʿēvāh: An abhorrent thing; an abomination.
תּוֹעֵבָה
This singular form is the source of the plural in the verse and links Manasseh’s actions to a recognized category of abhorrent practice.
toʿēv: Abhorrent or detestable.
תּוֹעֵב
The related adjective shows the same root describing what is regarded as abhorrent, not just the action itself.
THE PATTERN
A people can reproduce a pattern that has been driven out when they take its practices as their model.
Guard yourself, that you not be snared by following them, after they have been laid waste from before you; and that you not seek after their gods, saying, "How did these nations serve their gods? Even so will I do likewise."But they interwove among the nations, and trained in their works.Do not take the shape of this age, but be reshaped by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test what is the good, well-pleasing, and complete will of God.THE THREAD
And they walked in the statutes of the nations, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and in the statutes of the kings of Israel, which they had made.This verse uses the same Hebrew root, ירש (yāraš), in the causative form for the nations the LORD dispossesses. Read beside 2 Kings 21:2, it shows the repeated pattern clearly: the nations are cast out, yet their practices are taken up again.
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