What Does 2 Kings 3:3 Mean?
Nevertheless he clung to the shortcomings of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel miss the mark; he did not turn aside from 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
Nevertheless he cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom.THE KEY
The same Hebrew verb can describe clinging to the LORD or clinging to a missed way, so attachment itself is the hinge.
THE MEANING
A pattern of missing can become an attachment: it is held close until it shapes a shared path. The verse shows how refusing to release that pattern lets it keep causing others to miss, too.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Familiarity does not make an inherited pattern harmless; what is kept in place can keep producing the missing in others.
THE ROOT
וַיִּדְבַּק
wayyidbaq
GROWS FROM
דבק
d-b-q
to cling, adhere, remain fastened
“clung to” in this verse is wayyidbaq. The same Hebrew verb describes attachment to a spouse, to the LORD, and here to a pattern of missing. The words “he departed not” deepen the image: what stays fastened keeps shaping the life around it.
ALSO GROWS
wədāḇaq: cling to one’s wife
וְדָבַק
The same root can describe a bond that shapes a shared life, revealing the force of whatever a person clings to.
ūḇō tidbaq: cling to the LORD
וּבוֹ תִדְבָּק
The same root is used for attachment to God, making the object of the clinging decisive.
חַטֹּאות
ḥaṭṭōʾt
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
to miss, err, fail to reach the mark
“shortcomings” in this verse is ḥaṭṭōʾt. The Hebrew repeats this root in “which made Israel to sin”: the “sins” named as a pattern of missing become an action that causes others to miss, too. English separates the noun from the causative verb, hiding how the passage links a held pattern with its spread.
ALSO GROWS
yaḥăṭî: miss a target
יַחֲטִא
A physical miss shows the concrete image beneath the moral word: something goes wide of its mark.
heḥĕṭî: cause someone to miss
הֶחֱטִיא
This form from the same root turns the named missing into an effect carried into others.
THE PATTERN
What a person holds fast to shapes their allegiance and the influence they carry into others.
Stand in awe of the LORD your God; him you serve, and to him you cling, and by his nature you swear.No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will hold fast to one and look down on the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.Do not wander; bad company rots good habits.THE THREAD
Stand in awe of the LORD your God; him you serve, and to him you cling, and by his nature you swear.The exact verb translated “cleaved” in 2 Kings 3:3 is used here for cleaving to the LORD. The root reveals attachment as a binding force: what it binds a person to shapes the path that follows.
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