What Does 2 Chronicles 13:11 Mean in the King James?
And they burn unto the LORD every morning and every evening burnt sacrifices and sweet incense: the shewbread also set they in order upon the pure table; and the candlestick of gold with the lamps thereof, to burn every evening: for we keep the charge of the LORD our God; but ye have forsaken him.
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 verse sets watchful daily tending beside abandonment: a sacred rhythm is maintained even as its center is forsaken.
THE MEANING
Offerings, incense, arranged bread, and lamplight continue with care, while the verse names abandonment of God plainly. That tension reaches the reader now: familiar sacred practice and nearness to its center can come apart. The repeated morning-and-evening rhythm makes both realities visible at once.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that keeping every sacred routine proves that God has not been abandoned; it places the daily rituals beside the accusation of forsaking him.
THE ROOT
שֹׁמְרִים
shomrim
GROWS FROM
שׁמר
shamar
Guard, keep, watch
“keep the charge” in this verse is shomrim. Both “we are keeping” (שֹׁמְרִים, shomrim) and “the charge” (מִשְׁמֶרֶת, mishmeret) grow from שׁמר (shamar, guard, keep, watch), so the Hebrew names the keepers and their duty with one seed. The morning-and-evening rhythm makes that shared root a continuing watch, not a single act.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: Keeper, guard
שֹׁמֵר
The speakers are described as keepers, placing their repeated service within the language of guarding.
mishmar: Watch, guard duty
מִשְׁמָר
This branch carries the sense of an ongoing watch, illuminating why the verse calls their practice a charge.
לֶחֶם הַמַּעֲרֶכֶת
leḥem hammaʿarekhet
GROWS FROM
עָרַךְ
ʿārakh
Arrange, set out, place in order
“shewbread” in this verse is leḥem hammaʿarekhet. The Hebrew phrase names the bread as מַעֲרֶכֶת (maʿarekhet, arrangement): “bread of the arrangement.” This wording gives the bread a place in deliberate provision; the same root also describes the lamp being ordered in Exodus 27:21, joining food and light through their being set in place.
ALSO GROWS
ʿārakh: Arrange, set out, place in order
עָרַךְ
This verb shows the root’s action of deliberate arrangement, which names the bread’s ordered placement.
maʿărāḵāh: Array, ordered formation
מַעֲרָכָה
The same root can describe an arranged formation, adding the sense of intentional pattern to the bread’s placement.
THE PATTERN
Faithfulness takes visible shape in sustained keeping: what is entrusted is tended, watched over, and held through time.
In the tabernacle of the congregation without the vail, which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall order it from evening to morning before the LORD: it shall be a statute for ever unto their generations on the behalf of the children of Israel.He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.If ye love me, keep my commandments.THE THREAD
In the tabernacle of the congregation without the vail, which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall order it from evening to morning before the LORD: it shall be a statute for ever unto their generations on the behalf of the children of Israel.The lamp is to be “ordered” (יַעֲרֹךְ, yaʿarokh, arrange) from evening to morning; that verb shares the root עָרַךְ (ʿārakh, arrange) with מַעֲרֶכֶת (maʿarekhet, arrangement) in the phrase “bread of the arrangement.” The same root links bread and light as provisions deliberately set in place, with care spanning the night.
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