What Does 2 Chronicles 14:3 Mean in the King James?
For he took away the altars of the strange gods, and the high places, and brake down the images, and cut down the groves:
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’s “images” are standing pillars: renewal means the structures of rival devotion can be made to fall.
THE MEANING
Devotion is not abstract: a rival allegiance keeps its place through structures and objects that make it seem fixed. The verse shows renewal as removal, breaking, and cutting down; what once claimed a place loses its standing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that renewal comes only from adding new practices while every rival structure remains untouched.
THE ROOT
מַצֵּבוֹת
matzevot
GROWS FROM
נ־צ־ב
n-ts-b
To stand, take one’s position, or be stationed.
The word rendered “images” refers to standing pillars, from a root about standing or being stationed. The removal reaches the fixed place rival devotion occupies: what has been set upright can be taken down, and what seemed established can lose its station.
ALSO GROWS
natsav: To stand or take one’s position.
נָצַב
The verb shares the root of the pillars, linking the objects to what stands in a fixed place.
matzav: A position or station.
מַצָּב
This branch shows how the root can describe an established place, the kind of foothold the verse depicts being removed.
וַיְשַׁבֵּר
wayeshabber
GROWS FROM
ש־ב־ר
sh-b-r
To break or shatter.
“brake down” in this verse is wayeshabber. This verb describes more than neglect: the pillars are broken. The same root can name a fracture or something broken, making the act a direct undoing of what had been kept intact.
ALSO GROWS
shever: A break, fracture, or breach.
שֶׁבֶר
This noun makes visible the rupture contained in the act of breaking down the objects.
nishbar: Broken or shattered.
נִשְׁבָּר
This form carries the same root into a state of brokenness, showing that the verse’s action changes the object’s condition.
הַנֵּכָר
hanēkār
GROWS FROM
נ־כ־ר
n-k-r
To recognize or mark as different, including as foreign.
“Strange” here carries the sense of foreign allegiance, not merely something unusual. The same root can describe recognition, connecting the foreign gods with what is identified as belonging to another sphere.
ALSO GROWS
nokhri: A foreigner or outsider.
נָכְרִי
This branch makes the sense of foreignness in “strange gods” explicit.
hikkir: To recognize or identify.
הִכִּיר
This branch shows the root’s connection to distinguishing one thing from another.
THE PATTERN
Rival allegiances lose their hold as the structures that sustain them are put away and cast down.
And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the LORD, and serve him only: and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;THE THREAD
He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.The same three actions repeat: remove, break, and cut down. The detail about the bronze serpent sharpens the connection: even an object once associated with Moses can become a rival when it receives incense.
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