What Does 2 Chronicles 17:19 Mean in the King James?
These waited on the king, beside those whom the king put in the fenced cities throughout all Judah.
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 Hebrew turns “waited on” into active service: some attend the king while others are set in place throughout Judah.
THE MEANING
The verse presents care for a whole people as a network: some serve near the center, while others hold positions across the fortified cities. The work is distributed, with attentive service and a wider presence both sustaining the community.
THE ROOT
מְשָׁרְתִים
mesharetim
GROWS FROM
שרת
Attend, serve, or minister.
“Waited on” can sound like standing by, but the Hebrew names these people as active attendants. The same root describes service in other settings, so their closeness to the king is a role of attentive service.
ALSO GROWS
sheret: To attend or serve.
שֵׁרֵת
This verbal form makes the activity behind the attendants explicit: they are serving, not merely waiting.
mesharet: An attendant or minister.
מְשָׁרֵת
This singular form names a person by the service they perform, as the verse does with the king’s attendants.
הִנִּיחַ
hinniakh
GROWS FROM
נוח
Rest or settle; in a causative form, set down or place.
The king’s “put” is a causative form of a verb meaning to settle or let rest. In the context of fortified cities, it describes people established in assigned positions across Judah.
ALSO GROWS
nuach: To rest or settle.
נוּחַ
This base verb gives the placement a sense of being settled into a position.
menuchah: Rest or a resting place.
מְנוּחָה
This noun from the same root links settling with a place, illuminating how the king’s people are stationed across the land.
THE PATTERN
A community holds together through distinct responsibilities placed where they can serve.
Now the children of Israel after their number, to wit, the chief fathers and captains of thousands and hundreds, and their officers that served the king in any matter of the courses, which came in and went out month by month throughout all the months of the year, of every course were twenty and four thousand.Therefore set I in the lower places behind the wall, and on the higher places, I even set the people after their families with their swords, their spears, and their bows.For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:THE THREAD
And Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. And the child did minister unto the LORD before Eli the priest.The Hebrew word behind “waited on” shares its root with the word translated “minister” here. That root carries the sense of attentive service, whether the one served is a king or the LORD.
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