What Does 1 Chronicles 5:22 Mean in the King James?
For there fell down many slain, because the war was of God. And they dwelt in their steads until the captivity.
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
Even when a war is named as God’s, the verse keeps its dead visible and the possession of the land temporary.
THE MEANING
The verse holds mass death and settlement together: many are slain in a war it names as God’s, while the people dwell in the places secured by that war. That dwelling lasts only until captivity, so divine agency does not make the bloodshed disappear or the possession permanent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a victory attributed to God must be bloodless or secure forever: the verse names many dead and an eventual captivity.
THE ROOT
חֲלָלִים
ḥalālîm
GROWS FROM
חלל
To pierce or bore through; in related forms, to profane.
The Hebrew word for the slain carries the wound into the word itself: its root also means piercing, and related forms mean profaning. The word keeps bodily rupture and desecration close to the count, so “many” does not turn death into an abstraction.
ALSO GROWS
ḥālāl: A pierced person; a slain person.
חָלָל
This noun names the dead in the verse and preserves the bodily violence within the word.
ḥillēl: To profane, to treat as common.
חִלֵּל
This related form adds the sense of violation to the word family that names the slain.
הַמִּלְחָמָה
hamilḥāmāh
GROWS FROM
לחם
To fight or wage battle.
The Hebrew word מִלְחָמָה (milḥāmāh, war) is built from לָחַם (lāḥam, to fight). The phrase attributes the struggle itself to God, while the sentence immediately shows what that struggle costs.
ALSO GROWS
lāḥam: To fight, to wage war.
לָחַם
The verb names the action beneath the noun for war.
lōḥēm: A fighter, one who wages war.
לֹחֵם
This branch names the one engaged in the struggle that the verse attributes to God.
הַגּוֹלָה
haggōlāh
GROWS FROM
גלה
To uncover or reveal; also to be removed into exile.
English “captivity” sounds like a fixed condition; this Hebrew word belongs to a root that also means to uncover or reveal. After “dwelt,” it marks the shift from habitation to displacement, with an echo of exposure.
ALSO GROWS
gālāh: To uncover, disclose, or reveal.
גָּלָה
This verbal branch gives the root an additional sense of exposure beneath the verse’s endpoint.
gōlāh: Exile or deportation.
גּוֹלָה
This noun names the displacement that ends the dwelling described in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Scripture attributes victory and possession to God while leaving battle’s bodily and territorial consequences visible.
And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give you into our hands.And he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the LORD unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s.For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them.THE THREAD
And he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the LORD unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s.Both passages use מִלְחָמָה (milḥāmāh, battle or war) and assign the struggle to God. Here that claim stands beside many slain and a dwelling that lasts only until captivity.
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