What Does 2 Kings 25:16 Mean?
The two pillars, the one sea, and the stands that Solomon had made for the house of the LORD. The bronze of all these vessels was beyond weighing.
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
The two pillars, one sea, and the bases which Solomon had made for the house of the LORD; the brass of all these vessels was without weight.THE KEY
“Without weight” means the bronze is left unweighed, so the verse names a loss too great for measurement.
THE MEANING
You see the pillars, sea, and bases named as removed, their bronze left unweighed. The loss remains materially real even when its full measure is missing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that what is unmeasured is weightless: the measurement is absent, but the bronze still has weight.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁקָל
mishqal
GROWS FROM
שקל
sh-q-l
To weigh or weigh out.
“was beyond weighing” in this verse is mishqal. The Hebrew word names weight or weighing, while the parallel account says the vessels were left unweighed because they were so many. The phrase preserves an accounting limit: the bronze has weight, but no total is given.
ALSO GROWS
shaqal: To weigh or weigh out.
שָׁקַל
This verb makes the phrase about the missing act of weighing, not bronze without heft.
sheqel: A shekel, a unit of weight and value.
שֶׁקֶל
The same root can name a concrete measure; here, that measure is not recorded.
THE PATTERN
Scripture marks the limits of measurement when the whole exceeds what an account can contain.
And Solomon left all the vessels unweighed, because they were exceedingly many. Neither was the weight of the bronze searched out.Thus Solomon made all these vessels in great abundance, for the weight of the brass could not be searched out.And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which, if they were written down one by one, I suppose that even the ordered world itself could not make room for the books that would be written. Amen.THE THREAD
And Solomon left all the vessels unweighed, because they were exceedingly many. Neither was the weight of the bronze searched out.The same Hebrew root for weighing appears in both verses. This line makes the compressed phrase plain: the bronze is not weightless; it is left unweighed because there is too much to count.
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