What Does 2 Chronicles 2:18 Mean in the King James?
And he set threescore and ten thousand of them to be bearers of burdens, and fourscore thousand to be hewers in the mountain, and three thousand and six hundred overseers to set the people a work.
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
What the KJV calls setting the people to work is a Hebrew causative: the people are made to serve.
THE MEANING
A great undertaking becomes visible in people assigned to labor: some carry weight, others cut stone, and overseers direct the work. Its scale is counted, but each category keeps the labor concrete and the hierarchy visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the idea that monumental scale is impersonal: each total is made of people assigned to carry, cut, and serve.
THE ROOT
לְהַעֲבִיד
lehaʿavid
GROWS FROM
עבד
ʿ-b-d
To serve or work; in this causative form, to make people work or serve.
“to set the people a work” in this verse is lehaʿavid. English can make this sound like merely assigning a task, but the Hebrew says “to make the people serve or work.” Direction over labor is built into the verb: the people are the ones being put to work.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvad: to serve, work
עָבַד
This is the root verb behind the causative form in the verse.
ʿeved: servant
עֶבֶד
The same root names both service and the person who serves.
ʿavodah: service, labor
עֲבֹדָה
This noun keeps work and service within the same Hebrew word family.
סַבָּל
sabbal
GROWS FROM
סבל
s-b-l
To carry a load or bear a burden.
“bearers of burdens” in this verse is sabbal. The Hebrew names these workers as load-bearers, so their role is defined by what they carry. The root connects the bearer, the act of carrying, and the burden itself in one word family.
ALSO GROWS
sāval: to carry, bear a load
סָבַל
The verb names the action that defines the workers’ role in this verse.
sēvel: burden, load
סֵבֶל
The burden is the object carried, from the same root as the bearer.
sabbalim: load-bearers, porters
סַבָּלִים
This plural form names the people by the labor they perform.
THE PATTERN
A shared undertaking takes shape through divided labor, with people’s roles and burdens assigned within a structure of direction.
They which builded on the wall, and they that bare burdens, with those that laded, every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon.And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.THE THREAD
And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour:Both verses use forms of עבד (ʿavad, “serve or work”); 2 Chronicles uses its causative form, “to make the people serve or work.” Exodus makes the severity explicit with “rigour,” while 2 Chronicles foregrounds the organized assignment of labor.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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