What Does 2 Chronicles 12:6 Mean in the King James?
Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, The LORD is righteous.
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 rulers’ lowered posture exposes a truth their rank cannot bend: the LORD’s rightness stands independent of their verdict.
THE MEANING
When you stop defending your own verdict, you can name what is right without bargaining with it: the LORD is righteous. Humility does not make the LORD right; it lets that rightness become speakable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that admitting the LORD is right diminishes you; here, humility makes truth speakable.
THE ROOT
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צדק
ṣ-d-q
To be right, be in the right; alignment.
“righteous” in this verse is tsaddiq. The LORD is named as one who stands in right alignment. The same root runs through words for rightness and righteousness, showing that this is a whole field of right relation, not merely a label for goodness.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Rightness, justice.
צֶדֶק
It shares the root of צַדִּיק (tsaddiq), making the LORD’s rightness part of a wider language of justice.
tsedaqah: Righteousness, justice.
צְדָקָה
This branch keeps the same root in view: alignment is expressed as a quality of what is right.
וַיִּכָּנְעוּ
wayyikkāneʿū
GROWS FROM
כנע
k-n-ʿ
To be subdued, brought low.
“humbled themselves” in this verse is wayyikkāneʿū. The verb carries the sense of being subdued or brought under, not simply feeling modest. Their confession follows a yielding of self-assertion, so they can name the LORD’s rightness without making their own standing the measure.
ALSO GROWS
kanaʿ: To be humbled or subdued.
כָּנַע
This verb form carries the passage’s sense of yielding before the truth being spoken.
hikhniʿa: To subdue, bring low.
הִכְנִיעַ
The related causative form shows the root’s movement of bringing someone under; here, the rulers themselves enter that lowered posture.
THE PATTERN
When self-defense yields, the truth of the LORD’s rightness can be spoken plainly.
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.THE THREAD
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.The Hebrew word translated “justified” here comes from the same root צדק (ṣ-d-q) as צַדִּיק (tsaddiq), “righteous,” in the current verse. Both lines show the LORD’s rightness as something recognized when human self-defense gives way.
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