What Does 2 Chronicles 2:10 Mean in the King James?
And, behold, I will give to thy servants, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.
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 workers are inside the building plan: their food is measured out alongside the timber work, before the structure takes shape.
THE MEANING
The people cutting timber appear as embodied workers: grain, barley, wine, and oil are named for them. Preparing a dwelling and sustaining the people who prepare it occupy the same frame, in explicit measures.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the work can be honored while the workers’ sustenance remains incidental.
THE ROOT
כֹּרְתֵי
kōretê
GROWS FROM
כרת
k-r-t
to cut, cut down, or cut off
The word for the timber cutters comes from כרת (karat), meaning to cut. The same root appears in כָּרַת בְּרִית (karat berit), literally “cut a covenant,” so the timber work echoes Scripture’s language for covenant-making, a connection the English smooths over.
ALSO GROWS
karat: to cut down or cut off
כָּרַת
This is the concrete action named in the timber work.
karat berit: to cut a covenant
כָּרַת בְּרִית
The same root links cutting with the language of covenant-making.
נֹתֵן
nōtēn
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
to give, set, or place
The provision is expressed with a root that means give, set, or place, making the supplies concrete things set out for the workers. Its branch מַתָּנָה (mattanah), meaning “gift,” shares the seed of giving with what is given.
ALSO GROWS
natan: to give, set, or place
נָתַן
This verb names the act of providing the supplies.
mattanah: gift
מַתָּנָה
The related noun shows how the root of giving also names what is given.
THE PATTERN
The work includes the sustenance of the workers who carry it.
Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house.THE THREAD
In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:The timber phrase uses כֹּרְתֵי (kōretê), “cutters,” from כרת (karat), “cut”; Genesis uses that same root in כָּרַת בְּרִית (karat berit), “cut a covenant,” rendered “made a covenant” in the KJV. The shared verb lets the timber work echo the language of covenant-making.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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