What Does 2 Chronicles 20:25 Mean in the King James?
And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in abundance both riches with the dead bodies, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away: and they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much.
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
Jehoshaphat (יְהוֹשָׁפָט, Yehoshafat, “YHWH judges”) stands beside a victory measured by three days of stripping wealth from the dead.
THE MEANING
You meet abundance here in its starkest form: riches and desirable objects are stripped from dead bodies, and there is more than the survivors can carry. The three days of gathering make the surplus persist beyond the instant of victory.
THE ROOT
חֲמֻדּוֹת
chamudot
GROWS FROM
חמד
to desire, take delight in, covet
The Hebrew phrase כְּלֵי חֲמֻדּוֹת (keli chamudot, “vessels of desirability”) places what is called “precious” in the language of desire, alongside value. Because these objects are stripped from the dead, the word’s pull is bound to a physical taking.
ALSO GROWS
chamad: to desire, covet
חָמַד
In Deuteronomy 5:21, this root names desire for another’s possessions, making explicit the pull toward what is valued.
nechmad: desirable, pleasant
נֶחְמָד
In Genesis 2:9, it describes what is pleasant to the sight, linking desirability with what catches the eye.
THE PATTERN
The root of desire marks what appears attractive, what is coveted, and even the absence of outward appeal.
And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour’s wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour’s house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour’s.For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.THE THREAD
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.“Desired” uses חמד (chamad, “to desire or covet”), the same root carried by the “precious” objects here. Genesis places desire before taking; this verse names desirable objects being stripped from the dead.
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