What Does 2 Kings 22:6 Mean?
To the carvers, to the builders, and to the stonecutters, and to buy wood and cut stone to strengthen the 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
Unto carpenters, and builders, and masons, and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house.THE KEY
“Repair” means to strengthen: the house is restored by giving its structure firmer support.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to you through the precise work that makes restoration possible: skilled hands shape materials so a house can be strengthened. The existing house receives prepared timber and quarry-cut stone, fitted for the work of helping it stand.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what has weakened can only be restored by tearing it down is undone here: the house is strengthened through skilled work and prepared materials.
THE ROOT
לְחַזֵּק
lechazzeq to strengthen
GROWS FROM
חזק
ḥ-z-q
To be strong, strengthen, or make firm.
“strengthen” in this verse is lechazzeq to strengthen. The word translated “repair” names the strengthening of the house. It reveals restoration as making the structure able to stand firm again.
ALSO GROWS
chazaq: Be strong or prevail.
חָזַק
The same root names strength itself, showing that repair changes the house’s capacity to bear weight.
hecheziq: Hold fast or strengthen.
הֶחֱזִיק
The root also carries the sense of holding firm, linking repair with keeping the structure together.
אַבְנֵי מַחְצֵב
avnei mach-tsev stones
GROWS FROM
חצב
ḥ-ṣ-b
To hew, quarry, or cut something out.
“cut stone” in this verse is avnei mach-tsev stones. The Hebrew phrase points to stones from a quarry: the material that strengthens the house has been cut out and prepared. The stone word אֶבֶן (even, stone) also echoes אָב (av, father) and בֵּן (ben, son) as a wordplay, an image of lineage held within the house’s material.
ALSO GROWS
chotzev: A hewer or quarry worker.
חֹצֵב
The stone’s place in the house begins with skilled hands cutting it from the rock.
mach-tsev: Quarry.
מַחְצֵב
The word names the source of the stone, revealing the cutting and preparation behind the house’s strengthened structure.
לַבֹּנִים
labbonim to the
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
To build or establish.
The Hebrew keeps the act of building visible inside “builders.” Related words name both the building and its structure, binding skilled labor to what stands as a result.
ALSO GROWS
banah: Build or establish.
בָּנָה
This is the action carried by the word “builders”; the verse centers the work of making the house firm.
mivneh: Structure or building.
מִבְנֶה
The related word names what the builders shape, joining the human work to the house that receives it.
THE PATTERN
Restoration strengthens a structure through skilled work and materials prepared for the task.
And the king and Jehoiada gave it to those who did the work of serving the house of the LORD, and hired cutters and carvers to strengthen the house of the LORD, and also those who work iron and bronze, to strengthen it.Those who come from you shall build the dry ruins of the ages. You shall raise up the foundations of generation to generation, and you shall be called the mender of the breach, the one who turns the paths back to dwell in.You also, as living stones, are built up into a house of breath, a set-apart priesthood, to carry up sacrifices of breath, well received by God through Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Let the priests take it for themselves, each man from those who recognize him, and let them strengthen the broken places of the house, wherever a break is found.Both verses use חזק (chazaq, strengthen) for repairing the house. In this verse, the work meets the breach directly: repair means giving firmness where the structure has yielded.
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