What Does 2 Samuel 20:15 Mean?
And they came and pressed against him in Abel of Beth-maachah, and they poured a ramp against the city, and it stood in the trench, and all the people who were with Joab battered the wall, to make it fall.
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 came and besieged him in Abel of Beth-maachah, and they cast up a bank against the city, and it stood in the trench: and all the people that were with Joab battered the wall, to throw it down.THE KEY
A siege builds a raised way from surrounding pressure to the city’s wall.
THE MEANING
The verse shows siege as a built approach: attackers surround a city, raise a mound against it, and batter its wall to bring it down. The pressure gains a structure and a target; the wall is where the attack concentrates.
THE ROOT
סֹלְלָה
solelah
GROWS FROM
סלל
salal
To heap up or raise.
“bank” in this verse is solelah. The mound comes from סלל (salal), “to heap up, raise”; the same root forms מְסִלָּה (mesillah, a highway or raised road). Here the siege mound functions like a road for the attack, bringing pressure up to the wall.
ALSO GROWS
mesillah: Highway, raised road
מְסִלָּה
The same root can describe a constructed way; here, the raised mound makes a way for the attackers to reach the wall.
solelah: Siege mound, raised bank
סֹלְלָה
This is the word used for the mound: the siege takes shape as something piled up against the city.
מַשְׁחִיתִים
mashchitim
GROWS FROM
שחת
shachat
To destroy, ruin, spoil, or corrupt.
“battered” in this verse is mashchitim. The Hebrew participle presents the attackers as destroyers, and the verse names their aim: to bring the wall down. The same root also names שַׁחַת (shachat, a pit or ruin), linking the destructive act with the ruin it seeks.
ALSO GROWS
shachat: To destroy, ruin, spoil, or corrupt
שָׁחַת
This verb gives the battering its destructive force: the blows are directed toward collapse.
shachat: Pit, ruin, destruction
שַׁחַת
The noun carries the root’s movement toward ruin into the image of a place of collapse.
THE PATTERN
Siege turns surrounding pressure into a built approach against a city’s boundary.
And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his host, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and raised siege-works against it all around.For days will come upon you, when your enemies will drive stakes around you, and surround you, and press you in on every side.THE THREAD
And I will camp against you all around, and press a siege against you, and raise bulwarks against you.Isaiah uses the same root, צור (tsur, to press in or besiege), for “lay siege” as 2 Samuel uses for “besieged.” Isaiah also names the mound and forts, showing siege as pressure built into structures brought against the city.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us