What Does 2 Kings 23:35 Mean?
And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he set a price on the land to give the silver at the mouth of Pharaoh. He pressed the silver and gold from the people of the land, from each man according to his price, to give it to Pharaoh Necho.
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 Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh; but he taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh: he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every one according to his taxation, to give it unto Pharaoh-nechoh.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “exacted” shares its root with “taskmaster”: this measured levy still carries the pressure of being driven to yield.
THE MEANING
A command moves down the chain of power: Pharaoh demands, the king assigns a measure to the land, and each person gives up silver or gold. The calculation organizes the taking, while the wealth moves upward and the burden falls on the people below.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a burden becomes just because it is carefully apportioned: each person’s assigned measure still serves the ruler who commands the transfer.
THE ROOT
נָגַשׂ
nāgaś
GROWS FROM
נגשׂ
To press or drive; to exact what is demanded.
“pressed” in this verse is nāgaś. The verb translated “exacted” carries the pressure of making someone yield. Its root also names a taskmaster, linking this levy to the experience of being driven under another’s demand.
ALSO GROWS
nāgaś: To press, drive, or exact what is owed.
נָגַשׂ
The taking here carries the force of a demand imposed on the people, not merely the movement of money.
nōgēs: Taskmaster; one who drives or presses.
נֹגֵשׂ
This is the word used for the taskmasters whose pressure is heard in the cry of Exodus 3:7.
הֶעֱרִיךְ
heʿĕrîkh
GROWS FROM
ערך
To arrange or set in order; in this form, to assess or assign a value.
“set a price on” in this verse is heʿĕrîkh. The assessment is an ordering: the land and its people are arranged into amounts owed. English “taxed” can hide how the same root also speaks of setting things in order and assigning value.
ALSO GROWS
ʿārakh: To arrange or set in order.
עָרַךְ
The assessment puts the land into an ordered schedule of liability.
ʿērekh: Value, valuation, or assessed worth.
עֵרֶךְ
The phrase “every one according to his taxation” makes the burden follow an assigned measure.
THE PATTERN
A ruler’s claim becomes ordinary people’s burden when authority turns it into a measured levy and delegates its collection.
And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.And he said to them, Collect no more than what has been set for you.THE THREAD
And the LORD said, I have surely seen the bending low of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their drivers. For I know their pains.“Taskmasters” comes from the same root, נגשׂ (nāgaś), “to press or drive,” as “exacted” here. The shared root reveals that the levy’s collection carries the same pressure named in the Exodus cry, even as it passes through a king’s assessment.
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