What Does 2 Kings 24:10 Mean?
At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon went up against Jerusalem, and the city came into the siege.
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
At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.THE KEY
The city named for wholeness is under siege, and the verse holds its name and its enclosure together.
THE MEANING
You see Jerusalem, whose name carries wholeness, under violent enclosure. The siege closes movement around the city, but the name still bears what the city is called.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie undone is that being surrounded means wholeness has vanished; here the name and the siege occupy the same line.
THE ROOT
מָצוֹר
matsor
GROWS FROM
צוּר
tsur
To press in, enclose, or besiege.
“came into the siege” in this verse is matsor. The city is described as being בתוך a siege: the word makes the pressure a physical enclosure. English gives the condition in one word, while the Hebrew evokes space being pressed shut around the city.
ALSO GROWS
matsor: Siege; an enclosure around a city.
מָצוֹר
This is the word describing Jerusalem’s condition: the city’s space and movement are hemmed in.
ve-tsarti: “And I will besiege” (Isaiah 29:3), from the same root.
וְצַרְתִּי
The verb makes explicit the enclosing action that the noun names here.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
Whole, complete; the root carried in shalom, wholeness.
The city’s name carries the language of shalom, wholeness. The verse places that name beside the siege: enclosure is real, but it does not rename Jerusalem.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
It reveals the meaning carried in Jerusalem’s name even as the city is enclosed.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the contrast with the city’s besieged condition immediate.
וַיַּעֲלוּ
vayya'alu
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿalah
To ascend or rise.
“went up against” in this verse is vayya'alu. The threat arrives as an upward movement against Jerusalem before the city is described as enclosed. The verb gives the siege a direction: an outside force approaches, then closes around the city.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: To rise or ascend.
עָלָה
It is the basic movement in “came up,” making the attackers’ approach concrete.
ʿolah: An ascending offering; a burnt offering.
עֹלָה
This noun shares the root’s image of rising, showing how the same seed can describe movement upward.
THE PATTERN
Constricting pressure is pictured as space closing around a city, while release opens the narrow place into breadth.
And there was a great hunger in Samaria, and look, they pressed against it, until a donkey's head sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver.For days will come upon you, when your enemies will drive stakes around you, and surround you, and press you in on every side.From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.THE THREAD
And I will camp against you all around, and press a siege against you, and raise bulwarks against you.Isaiah uses the same siege root, צוּר (tsur, press in or besiege), in וְצַרְתִּי (ve-tsarti, “I will besiege”). Here the noun names Jerusalem’s condition; there the verb spells out the act of enclosing it.
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