What Does 2 Chronicles 12:15 Mean in the King James?
Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer concerning genealogies? And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually.
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
Hebrew repeats davar, “word” or “matter”, for both Rehoboam’s acts and Shemaiah’s record, joining what happens to the words that preserve it.
THE MEANING
A life can be held in a record from its first part to its last, with its recurring conflict named as part of the whole. Here the account does not isolate one battle; it says war runs through all the days. Repetition becomes part of the story’s shape.
THE ROOT
דִּבְרֵי
divrê
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; a word, matter, or thing.
The Hebrew phrase translated “acts of Rehoboam” is divrê Rehoboam; the record is then described with the same word, divrê Shemaiah. Both the events and the account are framed as words or matters, joining what happened to how it remains present in the record.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
This is the singular behind divrê, showing that “acts” can also carry the sense of matters or events.
dibbēr: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
The verb shares the root, connecting the recorded matters with speech and testimony.
כְּתוּבִים
kətûvîm
GROWS FROM
כתב
To write or inscribe.
The verse says the matters are written into a record that carries them beyond the moment they occur. The writing preserves the whole span, including the conflict that recurs through it.
ALSO GROWS
kātav: To write.
כָּתַב
This verb names the act that makes the reign’s matters recordable.
mikhtāv: A letter or written message.
מִכְתָּב
This related written form shows the root’s reach from the act of writing to a preserved message.
THE PATTERN
What is written carries a witness beyond the days in which it happens.
Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer,This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the LORD.For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.THE THREAD
And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.This parallel account renders the same duration as “all their days,” making clear what “continually” gathers into one word. The conflict marks the span of both reigns, not a single battle.
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