What Does 2 Kings 23:21 Mean?
And the king commanded all the people, saying, "Make the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant."
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 the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.THE KEY
The Hebrew says to “do the Passover,” making deliverance a shared act the people enact, not a memory left on a page.
THE MEANING
A shared act keeps deliverance present in the life of a people, anchored to the covenant’s written words. Passover is both remembered release and something the people enact together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Deliverance belongs only to the past and needs no living form.
THE ROOT
עֲשׂוּ
ʿasû
GROWS FROM
עשה
To do, make, or perform.
“make” in this verse is ʿasû. The Hebrew pairs עֲשׂוּ, “do,” with פֶּסַח, “Passover”: the people perform the observance together. The wording holds the remembered deliverance in an action shared across the community.
ALSO GROWS
maʿaseh: Deed, act, or work.
מַעֲשֶׂה
The same root turns “doing” into an enacted deed, illuminating Passover as shared practice.
ʿasiyyah: Action or doing.
עֲשִׂיָּה
This branch keeps attention on what the people enact, rather than on remembrance as an idea alone.
פֶּסַח
pesaḥ
GROWS FROM
פסח
To pass over or spare; the same root names the Passover observance.
“Passover” in this verse is pesaḥ. The name of the observance shares its root with the act of passing over. The word joins the practice to the deliverance it remembers.
ALSO GROWS
pāsaḥ: Passed over or spared.
פָּסַח
This is the verb used when the LORD passes over the marked doorway in Exodus 12:23.
pesaḥ: Passover, the observance and its associated sacrifice.
פֶּסַח
The shared root links the communal observance to the act named within its story.
THE PATTERN
A people’s memory of deliverance becomes durable when it is carried in a shared act.
And this day will be for you a remembrance. You will keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations, a statute for the ages.Guard the month of Abib, and make the Passover to the LORD your God, for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night.And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.THE THREAD
For the LORD will cross through to strike the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will leap over the opening, and will not give the ruiner leave to come into your houses to strike you.The Passover named in this command shares its root with the verb translated “pass over” here. The same word joins the observance to the act of deliverance it remembers.
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