What Does 2 Kings 21:6 Mean?
And he made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and worked with those who speak out of the ground and with the ones who know. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
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 made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.THE KEY
The verse places a son forced through fire beside the hunt for hidden knowledge, exposing a pattern of power that uses human life as its instrument.
THE MEANING
The verse makes the violence visible: a son is forced through fire alongside divination, enchantments, and dealings with mediums and wizards. In the LORD’s sight, these do not stand as detached techniques; the whole pattern is called much evil and provokes anger. The text keeps the cost in view wherever a human life is made to serve a grasp for power.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that seeking occult knowledge is harmless when kept private: the verse places it beside violence against a child and names the whole pattern evil before the LORD.
THE ROOT
נִחֵשׁ
niḥēsh
GROWS FROM
נחשׁ
To practice divination or take omens.
“used enchantments” in this verse is niḥēsh. The verb names a concrete act of seeking signs through divination. Its consonants also spell נָחָשׁ (nāḥāš, serpent); that textual echo is striking, though the historical relationship between the words is uncertain.
ALSO GROWS
niḥēsh: Divined; took an omen.
נִחֵשׁ
This is the action named in the verse, making the practice an act rather than a vague atmosphere of enchantment.
menaḥēsh: A diviner; one who takes omens.
מְנַחֵשׁ
Deuteronomy 18:10 uses this form for an enchanter, linking the act here to a named practitioner.
הֶעֱבִיר
heʿĕvîr
GROWS FROM
עבר
To cross or pass over.
“pass through the fire” in this verse is heʿĕvîr. This is a causative form: he makes his son cross through the fire. The root’s concrete sense of crossing sharpens the violence, the passage is imposed on the son.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: To cross; to pass over.
עָבַר
This is the basic verb beneath the forced passage through fire.
maʿavār: A crossing; a passage.
מַעֲבָר
This noun preserves the root’s sense of crossing a threshold, giving the verse’s action a concrete shape.
יִדְּעֹנִי
yiddeʿōnî
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know or perceive.
“the ones who know” in this verse is yiddeʿōnî. The Hebrew word for a wizard belongs to the knowing-family, framing the figure as a claimed knower. Here that claimed knowledge is bound to spirit-consultation and remains under the LORD’s judgment.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: To know; to perceive.
יָדַע
This verb gives the wizard’s name its association with knowing.
maddāʿ: Knowledge; understanding.
מַדָּע
This related noun shows the same root forming a word for knowledge itself.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents spirit-divination as a rival claim to guidance that can defile people and turn a human life into someone else’s instrument.
Do not turn your faces to those who speak from the pit, nor seek the ones who know, to be soiled by them; I am the LORD your God.And when they say to you, Seek to those who have familiar spirits, and to the knowers who chirp and moan, should not a people seek to their God? For the living, to the dead?And as we went toward prayer, a servant girl held by a breath of divination met us, who brought her masters much gain by divining.THE THREAD
No one is found among you who makes his son or his daughter cross through the fire, who divines divinations, who reads clouds, who hisses, or who works spells.Deuteronomy places a child’s passage through fire and divination in the same prohibition. Its word for an enchanter is מְנַחֵשׁ (menaḥēsh, diviner), formed from נחשׁ (naḥash, the root for divining), the same root as the verb translated “used enchantments” here.
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