What Does 1 Chronicles 21:14 Mean in the King James?

So the LORD sent pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.

1 Chronicles 21:14 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The verse names the LORD as the one who sends the plague, holding divine agency and seventy thousand deaths in the same sentence.

THE MEANING

The verse names a devastating judgment: the LORD sends pestilence upon Israel, and seventy thousand men fall. It holds the source of the plague and its human cost together without softening either.

THE ROOT

וַיִּשְׁלַח

wayyishlach

GROWS FROM

שלח

sh-l-ḥ

To send or send forth; also to release or let go.

The root makes the direction of the act clear: the LORD is the sender, and pestilence is what is sent. The same root can carry the sense of release, but here that sending ends in devastating loss.

ALSO GROWS

shaliach: A commissioned messenger or agent.

שָׁלִיחַ

This branch keeps the sender and the sent one joined in the word’s meaning, as they are in this verse.

shilluach: Sending away or dismissal; release.

שִׁלּוּחַ

It shows the root can name something released from its source; here, what is sent brings death upon Israel.

THE PATTERN

These passages name judgment as an act whose cost is borne in human bodies.

Now they that died in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, beside them that died about the matter of Korah.

Numbers 16:49 · KJVThe plague is recorded through the people who die, making the bodily cost explicit.

And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.

Acts 12:23 · KJVJudgment is named as an act, and its consequence is described in the body.

THE THREAD

For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth.

Exodus 9:14 · KJV

Exodus uses the same Hebrew root, ⁨שָׁלַח⁩ (shalach, to send), for the LORD sending plagues. Here the same verb carries a terrible cost: seventy thousand lives.

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