What Does 2 Chronicles 2:17 Mean in the King James?
And Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the land of Israel, after the numbering wherewith David his father had numbered them; and they were found an hundred and fifty thousand and three thousand and six hundred.
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 count makes 153,600 people called strangers visible within the land’s shared record.
THE MEANING
The people living in the land are included in its count, even as the verse names them by their stranger status. Their exact number makes their presence concrete in the record passed from David to Solomon. Here, being a stranger does not mean being absent from the account.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that people marked as strangers are too peripheral to belong in the count.
THE ROOT
וַיִּסְפֹּר
wayyispor
GROWS FROM
ספר
to count, recount, or tell
The Hebrew root behind “numbered” also carries the sense of telling or recounting. The total is more than arithmetic: it is a telling that records who is present.
ALSO GROWS
sefer: book or written record
סֵפֶר
The count becomes part of a record that can be carried forward.
sipper: told or recounted
סִפֵּר
The same root links enumerating people with recounting what is there.
mispar: number or count
מִסְפָּר
This branch names the exact total the verse preserves.
גֵּרִים
gerim
GROWS FROM
גור
to sojourn or dwell as a resident outsider
The word translated “strangers” comes from a root of dwelling or sojourning. These are people whose presence in the land is ongoing enough to be counted, not merely passersby.
ALSO GROWS
ger: sojourner or resident alien
גֵּר
The singular names a person living among the people while marked as an outsider.
gur: to sojourn or reside
גּוּר
The verb beneath the noun points to dwelling in the land as the basis for inclusion in this count.
דָּוִד
David
GROWS FROM
דוד
beloved; also kinship language
David’s name carries the sense of beloved and is related to language of kinship. The count is handed from father to son, placing this record within a named family line.
ALSO GROWS
dod: beloved or kinsman
דּוֹד
The name echoes a word for beloved kin as the verse identifies David as Solomon’s father.
dodim: loves or caresses
דּוֹדִים
This related form carries the root’s language of affection, adding a kinship resonance to the inherited record.
THE PATTERN
The stranger dwelling among a people is brought into the community’s shared order.
One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.One ordinance shall be both for you of the congregation, and also for the stranger that sojourneth with you, an ordinance for ever in your generations: as ye are, so shall the stranger be before the LORD.Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;THE THREAD
And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.Genesis uses the same ספר root for “tell” and “number.” Here the count records a definite number of people; there, the stars exceed the count, showing how the same act of telling can meet both what is counted and what cannot be contained.
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