What Does 2 Kings 23:7 Mean?
And he tore down the houses of the set-apart men, which were beside the house of the LORD, where the women wove tents for the Asherah pole.
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 brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.THE KEY
The Hebrew repeats the word for “house” three times, even where the KJV says “hangings”, placing rival dwellings beside the LORD’s house.
THE MEANING
You encounter the LORD’s house beside houses of the qedeshim, while women weave batim for Asherah; the same Hebrew word rendered “hangings” also means “houses.” The boundary is redrawn by demolition, and the force of that removal remains visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A place’s sacred name does not guarantee that every practice beside it serves that name.
THE ROOT
בָּתִּים
batim
GROWS FROM
ב־י־ת
House or dwelling; this is a noun family rather than a verbal root.
The Hebrew repeats the house-word in “houses of the qedeshim,” “house of the LORD,” and “batim” for Asherah. In context, the last occurrence refers to woven hangings, but the shared word keeps the house-echo audible.
ALSO GROWS
bayit: House or dwelling
בַּיִת
The singular form names the LORD’s house in the verse.
batei: Houses of; the construct plural
בָּתֵּי
This is the form behind “houses of the sodomites,” linking those dwellings to the repeated house-word.
batim: Houses; here, woven hangings
בָּתִּים
The KJV’s “hangings” renders the same noun family as “houses,” bringing the textile for Asherah into the architectural echo.
קְדֵשִׁים
qedeshim
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
Set apart or consecrate; the word here refers to male cultic personnel.
“set-apart men” in this verse is qedeshim. The word’s consonants also form words for what is set apart and for a sanctuary. That shared sound-family places the verse’s tension within the language of consecration itself.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart
קָדוֹשׁ
This familiar form shares the root behind the cultic title in the verse.
miqdash: Sanctuary
מִקְדָּשׁ
The sanctuary word grows from the same root, echoing the setting where these houses stand.
אֹרְגוֹת
orgot
GROWS FROM
ארג
ʾ-r-g
Weave or interlace threads.
“wove tents” in this verse is orgot. The verse names the women’s weaving as active work for Asherah. Alongside the repeated house-word, it shows both a practice at the site and the material made for it.
ALSO GROWS
oreg: Weaver
אֹרֵג
This related form names the person doing the work described in the verse.
arig: Woven fabric
אָרִיג
This related form names a product of the same weaving activity.
THE PATTERN
A sacred place is disclosed by the practices and objects it houses, as well as by the name it bears.
For the children of Judah have done evil in my eyes, says the LORD. They have placed their sickening things in the house which is called by my name, to make it unclean.And Jesus went into the temple of God, and threw out all who sold and bought in the temple, and turned over the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of those who sold doves.Have you not seen that you are God's temple, and that the breath of God dwells in you?THE THREAD
There shall be no set-apart harlot of the daughters of Israel, nor a set-apart male harlot of the sons of Israel.The word rendered “sodomite” here is the singular qadesh, from the same q-d-sh word-family as the plural qedeshim in 2 Kings. That family also gives words for what is set apart and for a sanctuary, tying the named cultic role to the verse’s sacred-space tension.
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