What Does 2 Chronicles 1:2 Mean in the King James?
Then Solomon spake unto all Israel, to the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and to the judges, and to every governor in all Israel, the chief of the fathers.
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 word translated “governor” comes from a root meaning “to lift or carry,” so authority here carries the image of a weight borne.
THE MEANING
A people is not an abstraction: shared life takes shape through those who lead, judge, and represent its households. The verse places that responsibility in a visible order, from captains and judges to the heads of families, as Solomon addresses all Israel.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Leadership is only a title, detached from the weight of responsibility it carries.
THE ROOT
נָשִׂיא
nasi
GROWS FROM
נָשָׂא
n-ś-ʾ
To lift, carry, or bear; nasi means a leader or prince, one raised up.
The title translated “governor” belongs to the root of lifting and bearing. That shared root lets authority carry an image of weight: the leader is not only elevated, but associated with what must be borne.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: To lift, carry, or bear.
נָשָׂא
This is the verb behind the title, opening a connection between being raised into leadership and bearing responsibility.
massa: A load or burden; also an oracle or pronouncement.
מַשָּׂא
The same root can name a weight to be carried, giving the title of leadership a resonance of responsibility.
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shlomo
GROWS FROM
שָׁלֵם
sh-l-m
To be whole, complete, or intact; shalom means wholeness.
Solomon’s name carries the root of wholeness. As he addresses all Israel through its leaders and family heads, his name places the ordering of the people beside the idea of communal wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch of the name’s root gives Solomon’s name a horizon of wholeness.
shalem: Whole, complete, intact.
שָׁלֵם
This branch shows the root’s sense of a condition made whole, echoing the passage’s attention to all Israel and its full structure.
THE PATTERN
A people’s shared life takes organized form through leaders entrusted with its communities and decisions.
Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes.And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter.THE THREAD
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.The title translated “governor” is nasi, from nasa, “to lift, carry, or bear.” Isaiah uses that same verb for bearing griefs, so the root lets leadership and the carrying of weight meet.
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