What Does 2 Chronicles 20:24 Mean in the King James?
And when Judah came toward the watch tower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude, and, behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped.
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 same Hebrew root names an escapee and a deliverer, and this verse closes by declaring that there is no escape.
THE MEANING
The scene meets you at the lookout: the multitude lies as bodies on the ground, and no one has escaped. The verse leaves no survivor to soften the violence of what you see.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a multitude is secure because it is numerous: here the multitude ends as fallen bodies, with no escape.
THE ROOT
פְּלֵיטָה
peletah
GROWS FROM
פלט
To slip away, escape, or be delivered.
“escaped” in this verse is peletah. The Hebrew line says “there is no פְּלֵיטָה (peletah, escape),” negating escape as a possibility. The same root family names פָּלִיט (palit, a survivor) and מְפַלְטִי (mephalti, my deliverer): escape, survival, and being brought out share one seed, and the verse closes that whole family here.
ALSO GROWS
palit: A survivor; one who escapes.
פָּלִיט
The word can name the one who gets out; the verse’s “none” rules out even one such person.
mephalti: My deliverer; one who brings me out.
מְפַלְטִי
The same root can name someone who brings another out, sharpening the force of the verse’s declaration that there is no escape.
THE PATTERN
The end of an overwhelming threat becomes visible in the aftermath it leaves.
Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore.And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.THE THREAD
And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram.Genesis uses הַפָּלִיט (ha-palīt, “the one who escaped”), from פלט (palat, “escape, deliver”). There, one survivor carries a report; here, the related noun פְּלֵיטָה (peletah, “escape”) is negated, closing the path that Genesis leaves open.
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