What Does 2 Samuel 7:25 Mean?
And now, O LORD God, the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, raise it up for the ages, and do as you have said.
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, O LORD God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant, and concerning his house, establish it for ever, and do as thou hast said.THE KEY
דָּבָר (davar, “word” or “matter”) names both what is spoken and what this prayer asks to stand.
THE MEANING
What is spoken concerning you and your house is treated as something that can take a standing form. The prayer holds speech and lived reality together: the word is named, then asked to be established. Its horizon reaches beyond the present moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a promise is only language, with no bearing on the life or household it concerns.
THE ROOT
הַדָּבָר
ha-davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak or declare; as a noun, davar can mean a word, matter, or thing.
The verse repeats this root in “the word” and in both references to what God has spoken. The Hebrew connects the utterance with the matter it concerns, rather than leaving the promise as sound alone.
ALSO GROWS
dibbarta: You spoke.
דִּבַּרְתָּ
This form of the same root appears in the verse’s references to what God has spoken and said.
davar: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
Its range links the spoken promise with the matter the prayer asks to stand.
הָקֵם
haqem
GROWS FROM
קום
To rise, stand, or arise.
“raise it up” in this verse is haqem. The verb translated “establish” comes from qum, “rise” or “stand.” The request pictures the spoken matter taking a standing form in the house it concerns.
ALSO GROWS
heqim: Raise up; cause to stand; establish.
הֵקִים
This causative form makes explicit the movement from standing to causing something to stand.
maqom: Place; standing place.
מָקוֹם
Its relation to qum carries the image of a place as where something stands.
THE PATTERN
A spoken word is shown as something that can stand and take effect in the life it addresses.
So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.For the ages, LORD, your word is set in the heavens.But the word of the Lord remains for the ages. And this is the word that was brought to you as good news.THE THREAD
So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew root, דָּבָר (davar, “word” or “matter”), for the word that goes forth and the matter where it prospers. That opens this prayer further: the word asked to stand is already described as moving into the matter it addresses.
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