What Does 2 Chronicles 14:13 Mean in the King James?
And Asa and the people that were with him pursued them unto Gerar: and the Ethiopians were overthrown, that they could not recover themselves; for they were destroyed before the LORD, and before his host; and they carried away very much spoil.
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 defeat is not merely a retreat: the broken have no life-sustaining recovery left.
THE MEANING
The force Asa pursues is broken before the LORD and his host, with no recovery remaining. Asa and those with him carry away abundant spoil.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that every defeat leaves a way to recover: here, the text says recovery is gone.
THE ROOT
מִחְיָה
michyah
GROWS FROM
חיה
Live, be alive; preserve life.
“recover” in this verse is michyah. The phrase says there is no מִחְיָה (michyah, life-sustaining recovery) for them. The same root gives words for living and life, so the English idea of recovery opens onto something deeper: the absence of what sustains life.
ALSO GROWS
chai: Living, alive.
חַי
This branch shows that the root carries the sense of being alive, not only recovering from a setback.
chayyim: Life.
חַיִּים
This branch makes the verse’s “no recovery” resonate as the absence of life-sustaining possibility.
michyah: Sustenance; preservation of life.
מִחְיָה
This is the word in the verse and names what the defeated have no means to regain.
נִשְׁבְּרוּ
nishberu
GROWS FROM
שבר
Break, shatter.
“destroyed” in this verse is nishberu. The Hebrew verb describes the Ethiopians as broken before the LORD and his host. Paired with the absence of מִחְיָה (michyah, life-sustaining recovery), it presents a collapse with no renewal in view.
ALSO GROWS
shavar: To break or shatter.
שָׁבַר
This verbal branch reveals the force beneath the KJV’s “destroyed.”
shever: Breaking, fracture, ruin.
שֶׁבֶר
This noun names the shattered condition that the verse places before the LORD and his host.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s intervention can break an opposing force decisively and change who holds the outcome.
And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the LORD overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in abundance both riches with the dead bodies, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away: and they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much.He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.THE THREAD
Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.Genesis 45:5 uses the same Hebrew word מִחְיָה (michyah, preservation of life) that names what the Ethiopians lack here. The shared root חיה (chayah, live) holds both outcomes together: no life-sustaining recovery in this verse, and life preserved in Joseph’s words.
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