What Does 2 Kings 24:20 Mean?
For through the burning of the LORD's anger it came to be in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had thrown them from his face, and Zedekiah broke away from the king of Babylon.
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
For through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.THE KEY
The city named for wholeness is cast from the LORD’s face as its king breaks allegiance.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s אַף (aph, anger/heat, also nostril) carries Jerusalem (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, Yerushalayim, bearing שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness)) and Judah into expulsion from his face. Zedekiah (צִדְקִיָּהוּ, Tsidqiyahu, “YHWH is righteousness/alignment”) rebels against Babylon’s king, placing the name’s alignment beside a break in allegiance.
THE ROOT
הִשְׁלִיכוֹ
hishlikho
GROWS FROM
שׁלך
shalakh
Throw, cast; the root names a forceful movement away.
“thrown them from his face” in this verse is hishlikho. The verb keeps the physical motion of throwing inside “cast them out.” The same root can express exile from presence or placing a burden onto the LORD, so its force carries both expulsion and transfer.
ALSO GROWS
hashlikheni: cast me away
הַשְׁלִיכֵנִי
Psalm 51:11 uses the same form in a plea against removal from God’s presence.
hashlekh: cast, throw
הַשְׁלֵךְ
Psalm 55:22 uses the same root for casting a burden onto the LORD, showing the verb’s physical force.
פָּנָיו
panav
GROWS FROM
פנה
panah
Turn, face toward.
The phrase “from his presence” names a face, making the image relational and spatial at once. Casting Judah from that face makes separation visible as distance from the one whose presence defines the sentence.
ALSO GROWS
panim: face; presence
פָּנִים
The plural form can name the face and, by extension, the presence from which Judah is cast.
panah: turn, face toward
פָּנָה
The related verb keeps orientation inside the image of a face turned toward someone.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
shalem
Wholeness, completeness.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim carries shalom, wholeness, with a dual ending, the two wholenesses. The sentence places that named wholeness under expulsion from the LORD’s face, setting the city’s nature beside rupture.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: wholeness
שָׁלוֹם
This branch carries the wholeness embedded in Jerusalem’s name.
shalem: whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the root’s sense of completeness audible beside the city’s expulsion.
THE PATTERN
Scripture portrays rupture through the loss of God’s face and the breaking of human allegiance.
Then my anger shall burn against them in that day, and I will let go of them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall become food, and many evils and narrow places shall find them, and they will say in that day, Have not these evils found us, because our God is not in our midst?He also broke away from king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God, but he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart from turning to the LORD God of Israel.who shall pay the penalty of ruin of the ages, away from the face of the Lord and from the weight of his strength.THE THREAD
Do not throw me away from your face, and do not take your Set-Apart Breath from me.Psalm 51:11 uses the same root שׁלך (shalakh, throw/cast) for “cast me away” and the same face word פָּנִים (panim, face/presence). It turns the collective expulsion here into a singular plea against that removal, making the distance from God’s presence concrete.
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