What Does 2 Chronicles 10:18 Mean in the King James?
Then king Rehoboam sent Hadoram that was over the tribute; and the children of Israel stoned him with stones, that he died. But king Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem.
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 collector dies and the king flees: tribute meant to secure rule instead exposes its fracture.
THE MEANING
The verse shows a ruler’s demand landing on a human body: the official sent to collect tribute is stoned to death. The king’s immediate flight shows authority collapsing into escape. Jerusalem carries the name of wholeness, but the fracture remains visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that collecting tribute can secure a ruler’s control: here, enforcement ends in the envoy’s death and the king’s flight.
THE ROOT
שָׁלַח
shalach
GROWS FROM
שלח
To send, send forth, or release; here, to dispatch an emissary.
“sent” in this verse is shalach. The same verb can describe dispatching someone and letting someone go. Here the king sends a man to enforce tribute, while the root’s wider range holds the possibility of release beside that act of control.
ALSO GROWS
shaliach: A sent representative or emissary.
שָׁלִיחַ
Hadoram carries the king’s authority in person, and becomes the one who bears the violence of that mission.
shallach: Send away; let go or release.
שַׁלַּח
The same verb is used in the command to Pharaoh, “Let my people go,” placing release beside this king’s dispatch of a tribute collector.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
shalem
To be whole or complete; the name carries the root association of wholeness.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Rehoboam flees toward Yerushalayim, whose name carries shalom, wholeness. The destination sharpens the gap between the name of wholeness and the fractured kingdom the verse leaves in view.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
The name Yerushalayim echoes this wholeness as the king runs from a rupture in his rule.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
Its sense of completeness makes the king’s flight toward Jerusalem stand in tension with the violence and fracture around him.
THE PATTERN
A stone turns collective judgment into a bodily sentence.
And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the LORD, shall be put to death.And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.THE THREAD
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.“Sent” and “let my people go” use the same Hebrew root, שָׁלַח (shalach), meaning send forth or release. The command to release a people opens the root beside Rehoboam’s dispatch of a collector to enforce tribute, exposing two opposite directions of power.
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