What Does 2 Samuel 19:32 Mean?
And Barzillai was a very old man, eighty years old, and he fed the king while he was at Mahanaim, for he was a very great man.
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
Now Barzillai was a very aged man, even fourscore years old: and he had provided the king of sustenance while he lay at Mahanaim; for he was a very great man.THE KEY
Greatness here is a life that keeps another supplied, even at eighty.
THE MEANING
This verse holds advanced age and active provision together: at eighty, Barzillai still sustains the king. Greatness appears alongside the act of keeping another supplied.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Advanced age means there is nothing left to give.
THE ROOT
כִלְכַּל
kilkal
GROWS FROM
כּוּל
kul
To contain, sustain, or maintain.
“fed” in this verse is kilkal. The root opens provision into the act of sustaining: keeping another supplied, not merely handing something over. The same verb describes Joseph nourishing his family and the LORD sustaining a burdened person.
ALSO GROWS
waykalkel: He nourished or sustained.
וַיְכַלְכֵּל
Joseph uses this same root when he supplies bread for his family in Genesis 47:12.
yekhalkelkha: He will sustain you.
יְכַלְכֶּלְךָ
Psalm 55:22 uses this root for the LORD holding up the one who casts a burden on him.
זָקֵן
zaqen
GROWS FROM
זקן
zaqan
To be old; to grow into elderhood.
The word for an aged man shares its consonants with the Hebrew word for beard, an outward marker associated with age. The verse gives his years as eighty, while the root carries age as something lived and visible.
ALSO GROWS
zaqan: Beard.
זָקָן
The shared root ties the description of age to a visible feature of the body.
ziqnah: Old age.
זִקְנָה
This noun names the state expressed by Barzillai’s description as aged.
מַחֲנָיִם
machanayim
GROWS FROM
חנה
chanah
To camp or pitch a tent.
“Mahanaim” in this verse is machanayim. The place-name is built from מַחֲנֶה, camp, with the dual ending, yielding two camps. The king is sustained at a place whose name holds the image of a doubled encampment.
ALSO GROWS
machaneh: Camp or encampment.
מַחֲנֶה
This is the noun from which the place-name is formed.
chanah: To encamp or pitch a tent.
חָנָה
The root describes the act of establishing a camp.
THE PATTERN
Provision sustains life through what is supplied.
And Joseph fed his father and his brothers, and all his father's house, with bread, according to the mouths of the little ones.Throw your load upon the LORD, and he holds you. He does not give the aligned one to totter for the ages.And my God will fill every need of yours according to his riches of weight, by Jesus the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And Joseph fed his father and his brothers, and all his father's house, with bread, according to the mouths of the little ones.Genesis uses the same Hebrew root for Joseph nourishing his family that describes Barzillai sustaining the king. The shared root lets provision open into the act of keeping others supplied, whether the circle is a household or a king.
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