What Does 2 Chronicles 15:13 Mean in the King James?
That whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.
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
Here, seeking is active pursuit, and refusing it carries a death sentence with no exemption for rank or sex.
THE MEANING
The claim reaches every person: refusing to seek the LORD is placed under death, from the least to the greatest, man or woman. The consequence named here is lethal, and no rank or sex creates an exemption.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that status or sex puts anyone outside this demand, or that refusal carries no consequence.
THE ROOT
יִדְרֹשׁ
yidrosh
GROWS FROM
דרש
darash
Seek, inquire, search out; also require.
English “seek” can sound like a passing wish, but יִדְרֹשׁ (yidrosh, “seek”) carries the force of active inquiry and pursuit. Here, that pursuit is the dividing line between life and death.
ALSO GROWS
midrash: Inquiry, interpretation, or exposition.
מִדְרָשׁ
Its connection to seeking shows the root at work in a sustained search for meaning.
derishah: Seeking, inquiry, or demand.
דְּרִישָׁה
The sense of demand reveals how this root can carry urgency and obligation as well as searching.
יוּמָת
yumat
GROWS FROM
מות
m-w-t
Die; death.
“put to death” in this verse is yumat. The Hebrew uses a passive form of the verb “die,” naming a death sentence imposed on the refuser. The word states death directly, without softening it into a figurative loss.
ALSO GROWS
mavet: Death.
מָוֶת
This noun makes explicit the consequence already carried by the verb in the verse.
met: Dead; a dead person.
מֵת
This form shows the same root describing the resulting state, not just the act of dying.
THE PATTERN
The covenant claim is total, and refusing it carries severe consequences.
And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the LORD thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel.If ye forsake the LORD, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good.He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:THE THREAD
But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.The second “seek” here is תִדְרְשֶׁנּוּ (tidreshennu, “you seek him”), from the same root דרש (darash, “seek, inquire”) as יִדְרֹשׁ (yidrosh, “seek”) in the current verse. Here refusal carries death; there, seeking with the whole heart and soul leads to finding God, showing both the weight and the relational direction of the same word.
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