What Does 2 Samuel 5:7 Mean?
David seized the stronghold of Zion. This is the city of David.
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 David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for Zion’s “stronghold” shares its root with hunting, while David’s verb is “capture”: the fortress is already inside the language of pursuit.
THE MEANING
When a defended place is seized, its new holder can reshape what it is called: Zion is identified as David’s city. The verb translated “took” means capture, and “stronghold” carries the root of hunting, so defense and pursuit sit in the same field of language. The verse leaves the violence visible: the city’s new identity follows its seizure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A fortified place is not invulnerable simply because it is called a stronghold; this verse says it can be seized and claimed.
THE ROOT
מְצֻדַת
metsudat
GROWS FROM
צוד
ṣûḏ
hunt, chase, capture
“stronghold” in this verse is metsudat. The fortress word grows from a root for hunting, chasing, and capturing, so its defensive force carries an echo of pursuit. The root also names game and nets, holding the pursuer, the enclosure, and the captured thing close together.
ALSO GROWS
ṣayiḏ: hunting; game or prey
צַיִד
The word family names both pursuit and what is pursued, bringing the stronghold’s root into tension with its defensive sense.
māṣôḏ: net, snare, or hunting apparatus
מָצוֹד
The same root can name a device that catches, joining pursuit with enclosure.
וַיִּלְכֹּד
wayyilkod
GROWS FROM
לכד
l-k-d
catch, seize, capture
“seized” in this verse is wayyilkod. The verb used here means to capture or seize, so the action names an act of conquest. Its passive form means to be caught, keeping captor and captured within one root family and leaving the transfer of power visible.
ALSO GROWS
lāḵaḏ: to catch, seize, or capture
לָכַד
This base form makes the force of David’s action explicit.
nilkaḏ: to be caught or captured
נִלְכַּד
The passive form shows the same root from the position of the one seized.
דָּוִד
Dāwîḏ
GROWS FROM
דוד
d-w-d
beloved; affection and kinship
David’s name is linked with the root of belovedness, so “the city of David” attaches a relational name to the captured place. After the clause of seizure, the text identifies Zion through a human bond-name, holding conquest and belonging in one line.
ALSO GROWS
dōḏ: beloved; also uncle or close male kin
דּוֹד
This relational word shares the root linked to David’s name.
dōḏîm: love or caresses
דּוֹדִים
The root also names affection, giving “the city of David” a relational resonance beyond its geography.
THE PATTERN
A fortified place offers real defense, but scripture shows that defense does not make its possession permanent.
Now the children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem, and had seized it, and struck it with the mouth of the sword, and sent the city into the fire.In the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the walled cities of Judah and seized them.Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and strip away his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then he will strip his house.THE THREAD
The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my rock, in whom I shelter; my shield, and the horn of my deliverance, and my high place.The same Hebrew noun, מְצוּדָה (metsudah, “stronghold” or “fortress”), appears in both verses. Here it names a place David captures; in the psalm, David names the LORD as his fortress, letting the word hold a captured stronghold beside a source of refuge.
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