What Does 2 Chronicles 18:6 Mean in the King James?
But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the LORD besides, that we might enquire of 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
Jehoshaphat’s question makes discernment an act of seeking: a chorus of agreement does not itself establish that the LORD has spoken.
THE MEANING
When confident voices around you claim to speak for God, this verse leaves room for a searching question: is there another voice to seek from the LORD? Asking shows that agreement alone does not settle the source of a message.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a message must be God’s because many voices repeat it dissolves here: number and certainty do not establish its source.
THE ROOT
דָּרַשׁ
darash
GROWS FROM
דרש
To seek, inquire after, consult, or investigate.
The root behind “enquire” also describes seeking and searching. The question carries more than a request for another prediction: it turns toward the source of the counsel being sought.
ALSO GROWS
doresh: One who seeks or inquires.
דּוֹרֵשׁ
This form makes the active seeker visible in the root’s family, echoing the deliberate question in the verse.
midrash: Exposition or interpretive inquiry.
מִדְרָשׁ
Its connection to darash shows the root extending from asking toward sustained searching for meaning.
יְהוֹשָׁפָט
Yehoshaphat
GROWS FROM
שפט
To judge, decide, or render judgment; the name combines YHWH with this root and is understood as “YHWH judges.”
“Jehoshaphat” in this verse is Yehoshaphat. The name carries the language of judgment into a verse about seeking a prophet of the LORD. It quietly echoes the question of whose judgment is being heard.
ALSO GROWS
shofet: Judge.
שֹׁפֵט
This is a person who exercises judgment, resonating with Jehoshaphat’s name.
mishpat: Judgment, justice, or a legal decision.
מִשְׁפָּט
This branch names the judgment Jehoshaphat’s question seeks from the LORD.
THE PATTERN
A claim to speak from God is weighed through discernment, not assumed true because it sounds certain or gathers agreement.
When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.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 phrase “if thou seek him” uses the same root, דרש (darash), as “enquire” in Jehoshaphat’s question. The shared root opens inquiry as an act of seeking the LORD, not merely collecting another answer.
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