What Does 2 Chronicles 23:15 Mean in the King James?
So they laid hands on her; and when she was come to the entering of the horse gate by the king’s house, they slew her there.
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 verse traces how power takes hold of a body, carries it to a named gate, and kills it there.
THE MEANING
The verse makes violence legible as a sequence: hands seize, a woman reaches a named gate, and people kill her there. It keeps the place attached to the act, making the killing concrete and bodily rather than an abstraction.
THE ROOT
וַיַּמִיתוּהָ
wayyamîtûhā
GROWS FROM
מות
m-w-t
Die; in this verb form, cause to die.
The Hebrew verb is causative: they cause her to die. Its root also names dying and death, keeping the act and its bodily consequence joined in a way the single English word “slew” can conceal.
ALSO GROWS
māvet: Death.
מָוֶת
The noun names the outcome of the action described here, from the same root.
mēt: A dead person; one who has died.
מֵת
This branch names the person in the state the verb brings about.
mût: To die.
מוּת
The basic verb connects their act of causing death to the experience of dying.
וַיָּשִׂימוּ
wayyāśîmû
GROWS FROM
שים
ś-y-m
Put, place, set.
The phrase translated “laid hands on her” uses the ordinary verb “set” with “hands”: force is shown as something placed directly on her body. The same root can describe setting the heart toward something, so the verse’s physical setting of hands carries a force that English idiom can blur.
ALSO GROWS
śîm: To put, place, or set.
שִׂים
This is the basic verb behind the action of laying hands on her.
śām: He put or set.
שָׂם
This form shows the root in a simple act of placing.
śîmû ləvavkhem: Set your hearts; attend.
שִׂימוּ לְבַבְכֶם
The same root can place attention inward; here the hands are set upon another person.
THE PATTERN
Violent power marks a killing by forcing a person beyond a boundary and naming the place where death occurs.
And there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died.And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.THE THREAD
And there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died.Naboth’s “he died” uses the same root, מות, as the causative “they slew her” here: one scene names people causing death, the other names a man dying after he is carried outside. The shared root joins the act to its bodily result, while both verses trace violence across a boundary.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us