What Does 2 Kings 25:5 Mean?
And the host of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and all his host was scattered from him.
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 army of the Chaldees pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all his army were scattered from him.THE KEY
The king is overtaken, and the word for his army’s scattering shares its root with sheep dispersing when their shepherd is struck.
THE MEANING
The king is pursued and overtaken in Jericho’s plains, and the army scatters away from him. The force gathered around him no longer holds together as one body. The verse speaks now of how being near a center of power does not guarantee that a gathered company will remain with it when that center is overtaken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that standing beside a powerful center guarantees continued protection: the army around the king scatters from him as he is overtaken.
THE ROOT
נָפֹצוּ
nāphōṣû
GROWS FROM
פוץ
pūṣ
To scatter, be dispersed, or spread abroad.
The Hebrew verb נָפֹצוּ (nāphōṣû, “they scattered”) comes from פוץ (pūṣ, “to scatter or spread abroad”). This seed can describe both the loss of a group’s cohesion and its dispersal away from the one it had gathered around.
ALSO GROWS
wayyāpeṣ: Scattered or spread abroad.
וַיָּפֶץ
In Genesis 11:8, the same root describes people dispersed from their shared project, showing that the word can mark the breaking apart of a gathered company.
təfūṣênāh: The sheep scatter.
תְפוּצֶינָה
In Zechariah 13:7, the same root describes sheep dispersing when their shepherd is struck, echoing the army scattered from its king.
THE PATTERN
A company gathered around a center can be dispersed when that center is struck, overtaken, or lost.
So the LORD scattered them from there across the face of all the earth; and they let go of building the city.Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man at my side, says the LORD of hosts; strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; and I will turn my hand upon the little ones.Look, an hour is coming, and it has come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and you will let go of me alone. And I am not alone, because the Father is with me.THE THREAD
Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man at my side, says the LORD of hosts; strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; and I will turn my hand upon the little ones.The same Hebrew root פוץ (pūṣ, “scatter”) describes the sheep dispersing when their shepherd is struck. Here, an army scatters from its king; there, sheep scatter from their shepherd, the shared word makes the break between a company and its center visible in both.
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