What Does 2 Chronicles 2:11 Mean in the King James?
Then Huram the king of Tyre answered in writing, which he sent to Solomon, Because the LORD hath loved his people, he hath made thee king over them.
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 people are named as the reason for the gift of a king: love takes the form of placing authority among those who are loved.
THE MEANING
The verse presents rule as an act of giving: the king is placed over a people because the LORD loves them. It speaks now by locating the center of that authority in the people who are loved.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a ruler’s appointment means the ruler alone is the object of love; the verse names the people as its reason.
THE ROOT
נָתַן
natan
GROWS FROM
נתן
to give, set, or place
The verb translated “made” is natan, “gave”: the Hebrew pictures the king as given over the people. Love for them is the reason for that gift, so the appointment is framed around its recipients.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: gift
מַתָּנָה
The king’s appointment is expressed as something given, echoing the idea of a gift.
netinah: giving or setting
נְתִינָה
This branch keeps the act of giving visible inside the appointment.
אַהֲבַת
ahavat
GROWS FROM
אהב
to love
The verse names love as the reason the king is given. Love here is connected to a concrete act: placing someone in authority over the people who are loved.
ALSO GROWS
ahav: to love
אָהַב
This verb shares the seed of the verse’s noun for love.
ahuv: beloved
אָהוּב
This branch describes the people as recipients of the love that grounds the king’s appointment.
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shelomoh
GROWS FROM
שלם
to be whole, complete, or sound
Solomon’s name carries the sound and sense of shalom, wholeness. In a verse about giving a king to a loved people, the name places his rule under the horizon of wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: wholeness, peace
שָׁלוֹם
The name’s shared root connects Solomon with the idea of wholeness.
shalem: whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch gives the root’s sense of completeness carried in the name.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes love visible through concrete acts that give, send, or bring out for the beloved.
But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.THE THREAD
Blessed be the LORD thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel: because the LORD loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee king, to do judgment and justice.The same pairing returns: love for the people precedes making Solomon king. The verse adds judgment and justice, showing the shape this gift of authority takes.
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