What Does 2 Kings 25:4 Mean?
Then the city was split open, and all the men of war fled by night through the gate between the two walls, by the king's garden, while the Chaldeans were all around the city, and the king went by the way of the plain.
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 the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king’s garden: (now the Chaldees were against the city round about:) and the king went the way toward the plain.THE KEY
The breached city opens into movement, but the route named here is flight through a narrow gate between walls.
THE MEANING
A breached boundary can force movement before safety is possible. The route shown is a narrow gate between walls, while danger surrounds the city; even the king’s movement toward the plain remains flight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that an opening guarantees safety falls away: the route is passable, but the Chaldees still encircle the city.
THE ROOT
וַתִּבָּקַע
vatibbaqaʿ
GROWS FROM
בקע
split, cleave open
“was split open” in this verse is vatibbaqaʿ. The phrase “broken up” carries the city’s damage, and the Hebrew verb also makes the opening itself vivid: a boundary is cleaved. The same root describes deep fountains bursting open and waters divided for passage, so the breach holds rupture and an opening through which movement occurs.
ALSO GROWS
nibqəʿu: were broken open (Genesis 7:11)
נִבְקְעוּ
The same root describes the fountains of the deep bursting open, making the breach a release of force.
wayyibbāqəʿu: were split (Exodus 14:21)
וַיִּבָּקְעוּ
The root also describes the sea opening so people can cross, showing that a split can create a passage as well as expose a boundary.
THE PATTERN
A split boundary changes what can pass or remain separated: it can unleash force, open a crossing, or end a division.
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that very day, all the springs of the great deep were split open, and the windows of heaven were opened.And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD made the sea go back by a strong breath of the east all that night, and made the sea dry ground, and the waters were split.For he is our wholeness, the one who made both one and loosed the middle wall of the fence.THE THREAD
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD made the sea go back by a strong breath of the east all that night, and made the sea dry ground, and the waters were split.Exodus 14:21 uses the same root, בָּקַע (bāqaʿ, “split open”), as “broken up” here, but the divided waters become a crossing. The shared word holds the act of opening constant while the scene changes what the opening carries: passage through the sea there, flight under encirclement here.
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