What Does 2 Samuel 2:6 Mean?
And now may the LORD do faithful love and truth with you, and I also will return this goodness to you, because you have done this thing.
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 now the LORD shew kindness and truth unto you: and I also will requite you this kindness, because ye have done this thing.THE KEY
David’s promise to do good echoes the LORD’s doing of faithful love and truth, making kindness an active pattern carried forward.
THE MEANING
A deed of care still matters after the moment has passed: it can be remembered and answered with good. The LORD’s faithful love is bound to truth, what is steady and dependable, and David’s response gives that love a concrete shape.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a good deed has no weight beyond the moment: care can be remembered and answered with good.
THE ROOT
חֶסֶד
ḥesed
GROWS FROM
חסד
Loyal care expressed through action; faithful love.
“faithful love” in this verse is ḥesed. “Kindness” can sound like a feeling, but ḥesed names loyal care that binds itself to another’s good. Beside truth and David’s promise to do good, it appears as dependable action.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsad: To show kindness or act loyally.
חָסַד
The verb shows that faithful love can be enacted, not merely felt.
ḥāsîd: A faithful or devoted person.
חָסִיד
The same root names a person by the quality of loyal care.
אֱמֶת
ʾemet
GROWS FROM
אמן
To be firm, steady, or reliable.
Truth here carries the sense of what can be relied upon. Its root also gives words for trust and firmness, so the promise joins faithful love to dependable presence.
ALSO GROWS
ʾemunah: Steadfastness, trust, or firmness.
אֱמוּנָה
It shows truth as something steady enough to lean on.
ʾamen: Firmly; truly; so be it.
אָמֵן
The familiar affirmation carries the same sense of confirming what is firm.
יַעַשׂ
yaʿas
GROWS FROM
עשה
To do, make, or bring about.
Beneath “shew” and “requite,” the same Hebrew verb appears: the LORD does faithful love and truth, and David says he will do good. The echo makes care visible in what is done.
ALSO GROWS
maʿaseh: A deed or work.
מַעֲשֶׂה
It names the action that gives care a visible form.
ʿoseh: One who does or makes.
עֹשֶׂה
It shows the root can describe the one who brings an action about.
THE PATTERN
Faithful love becomes visible in deeds and continues through care answered with care.
And Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, Go, turn back each to her mother's house. May the LORD do faithful love with you, as you have done with the dead and with me.Faithful love and truth meet; alignment and wholeness kiss.Little children, let us not love in word, nor in the tongue, but in works and in truth.THE THREAD
Faithful love and truth meet; alignment and wholeness kiss.The same Hebrew pair, ḥesed, rendered “mercy,” and ʾemet, “truth”, appears together here. The verse says they meet, opening 2 Samuel’s promise as faithful care joined to what is steady and true.
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