What Does 2 Kings 6:4 Mean?

So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood.

2 Kings 6:4 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood.

THE KEY

The place-name itself carries motion: they go to the Jordan, the descender, where trees are cut into material for a dwelling.

THE MEANING

A place to dwell is made through shared, physical work at the source of its material. The one who goes with the workers is present at the site, where trees become building material. Yarden echoes yarad, “to descend,” so even the destination holds movement.

THE ROOT

יַרְדֵּן

Yarden

GROWS FROM

ירד

To descend, go down.

In English, Jordan is a place-name; its Hebrew form echoes ⁨ירד⁩, “to descend.” The river’s name carries the same movement made explicit when Naaman later goes down into its waters.

ALSO GROWS

yarad: To go down, descend.

יָרַד

This is the verb whose sound and sense form the river’s name; in 2 Kings 5:14 it describes Naaman going down into the Jordan.

yeridah: Descent, going down.

יְרִידָה

This noun preserves the root’s movement as a downward passage, revealing motion within what English reads as a fixed location.

THE PATTERN

A shared dwelling takes shape through joined labor and material prepared for building.

Let us go, we pray you, to Jordan, and let each man take from there a beam, and let us make a place there, where we may settle. And he answered, Go.

2 Kings 6:2 · SDVEach worker contributes a beam, and the group makes a place where they can dwell.

And now, command that they cut cedars for me from Lebanon, and my servants will be with your servants, and I will give you the wages of your servants according to all you say, for you know that among us there is none who knows how to cut trees like the Sidonians.

1 Kings 5:6 · SDVTrees are hewn for building, with the work shared across groups of laborers.

For we are fellow workers with God. You are God's field; you are God's building.

1 Corinthians 3:9 · SDVBuilding is pictured as shared labor, with the people themselves described as the structure taking shape.

THE THREAD

Then he went down and immersed himself seven times in Jordan, according to the word of the man of God. And his flesh returned like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

2 Kings 5:14 · SDV

Jordan’s name echoes ⁨ירד⁩, “to descend,” and this verse makes that root audible in “went he down.” Here descent into the Jordan’s waters is followed by cleansing; in 2 Kings 6:4, the same descending river is where the shared work of cutting wood happens.

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