What Does 2 Kings 3:25 Mean?
And they tore down the cities, and on every good piece of ground each man threw his stone, and filled it. And they stopped up every spring of waters, and caused every good tree to fall, until its stones were left in Kir-hareseth. But the slingers circled it, and struck it.
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 they beat down the cities, and on every good piece of land cast every man his stone, and filled it; and they stopped all the wells of water, and felled all the good trees: only in Kir-haraseth left they the stones thereof; howbeit the slingers went about it, and smote it.THE KEY
The attack reaches beyond the cities to the soil, springs, and trees that make life there possible.
THE MEANING
Here, destruction reaches into the conditions that sustain a place: workable ground is buried under stones, water sources are blocked, and useful trees are felled. Even the city whose stones remain is still struck by slingers, so what survives the first assault remains under attack.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that conquest only changes who holds a city dissolves here: it can also disable the land’s ability to feed and water whoever remains.
THE ROOT
מַעְיַן
maʿyan
GROWS FROM
עין
ʿ-y-n
Eye; the word family also names a spring or source of water.
“stopped up every spring of waters” in this verse is maʿyan. The Hebrew word translated “wells” is maʿyan, a spring or fountain, built on the same word family as ʿayin, “eye.” The siege blocks the land’s outlets of water, attacking life at the point where it emerges.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: Eye; also a spring or source.
עַיִן
The shared word family makes the spring an eye-like outlet in the landscape, adding a source-image to the verse’s account of blocked water.
maʿyan: Spring or fountain.
מַעְיָן
This is the word used for the targeted water sources, emphasizing the flow that the attackers make inaccessible.
יִסְתֹּמוּ
yistomu
GROWS FROM
סתם
s-t-m
To close, block, or stop up.
“stopped up every spring of waters” in this verse is yistomu. This verb describes intentional closure: the springs are made unable to give water. The same root describes wells stopped with earth in Genesis 26:15 and words shut up in Daniel 12:4; here, closure is literal, and water is its target.
ALSO GROWS
vayisattemum: They stopped them up.
וַיְסַתְּמוּם
Genesis 26:15 uses this root for wells filled with earth, showing the same act of cutting off a water source.
setom: Shut up or close.
סְתֹם
Daniel 12:4 uses this form for shutting up words; the shared root carries the concrete action of closing off.
THE PATTERN
When water and food sources are disabled, destruction spreads beyond its immediate target to everyone who depends on them.
He took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop up the waters of the springs which were outside the city, and they helped him.And they camped against them, and ruined the yield of the land, until you come to Gaza, and left no living for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor donkey.And the name of the star is called Wormwood; and the third part of the waters becomes wormwood, and many among humankind die from the waters, because they are made bitter.THE THREAD
For all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had plugged them, and filled them with dust.The Hebrew verb for “stopped” is from the same root in both verses. In each, conflict reaches the water supply by closing the springs or wells and making them unusable.
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