What Does 2 Kings 23:32 Mean?
And he did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.
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, according to all that his fathers had done.THE KEY
The evil is not merely what he inherits; it becomes his own the moment he does it again.
THE MEANING
Where an inherited harmful way is enacted again, its old origin does not make the present deed invisible to the LORD. It is both received and newly done.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a harmful practice is harmless because it was passed down.
THE ROOT
וַיַּעַשׂ
vayya'as
GROWS FROM
עָשָׂה
asah
Do, make, act.
“did / had done” in this verse is vayya'as. The same root names both his act and his fathers’ acts: what he does now repeats what they did before. Since עָשָׂה (asah) also means “make,” the verse shows inherited harm being made present again through action.
ALSO GROWS
ma'aseh: Deed, work.
מַעֲשֶׂה
The deed in the verse is the visible result of what someone does.
asiyah: Doing, making.
עֲשִׂיָּה
This branch holds action and making together, echoing how a past pattern takes shape again in the present.
הָרַע
hara'
GROWS FROM
רָעַע
ra'a
Be bad or act harmfully.
The word for “evil” belongs to a family that also names badness and doing harm. Beside עָשָׂה (asah, “do, make”), it keeps the harmful quality and its repeated enactment together.
ALSO GROWS
ra': Bad or evil.
רַע
This adjective names the quality of the act being repeated.
roa': Badness or evil.
רֹעַ
This noun names the harmful quality as a condition, while the repeated verb shows it being enacted.
THE PATTERN
A harmful way can survive across generations when the present repeats what it has received.
And the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and served Baalim.Yet they would not hear and respond, but stiffened their necks, like the neck of their fathers, who did not lean their weight on the LORD their God.knowing that you were not loosed with what can be ruined, silver or gold, from your empty walk handed down from your fathers.THE THREAD
And he walked in all the shortcomings of his father, which he had done before him, and his heart was not whole with the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father.Both verses use עָשָׂה (asah, “do, make”) for what a man does and what his fathers have done. Here, the root’s repetition links inherited action to the present deed; 1 Kings makes that transmission plain as a son walks in what his father had already done.
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