What Does 2 Chronicles 24:21 Mean in the King James?
And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD.
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 can name a bond or a conspiracy: here, people bind themselves together to make violence executable.
THE MEANING
A conspiracy binds people against a witness, and the king’s command turns that bond into stoning in the court of the LORD’s house. The sacred setting stays in the frame but cannot hide the violence happening there.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a ruler’s command or a sacred place makes an act righteous.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְשְׁרוּ
vayyiqshru
GROWS FROM
קשר
qashar
To tie or bind together.
English “conspired” can sound like a private scheme, but קשר names people binding themselves together. Here, that collective bond carries out the king’s command.
ALSO GROWS
qashar: To tie, bind, or join together.
קָשַׁר
This verb shows the shared root’s basic image: people or things joined into a bond.
qesher: A bond, connection, or conspiracy.
קֶשֶׁר
This noun makes the verse’s conspiracy a kind of binding together, linking the plot directly to the violence that follows.
מִצְוַת
mitzvat
GROWS FROM
צוה
tsavah
To command, direct, or appoint.
“commandment” in this verse is mitzvat. The king’s order is part of the act itself: it directs the violence and gives the conspirators authority to carry it out. The root keeps command concrete, as direction that moves people toward an action.
ALSO GROWS
mitzvah: A command or instruction.
מִצְוָה
This familiar noun comes from the same root and shows the command as a directive that shapes what follows.
tsav: An order or command.
צַו
This short form preserves the root’s direct force: someone gives an order, and others act on it.
THE PATTERN
When people bind together under authority, public violence can be made to look like judgment.
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.O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!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.THE THREAD
Now therefore when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad be not with us; seeing that his life is bound up in the lad’s life;Genesis uses the same Hebrew root קשר (qashar, “to bind”) for a life bound to another life. Here the same root describes people bound together against someone; one bond holds a life close, while the other organizes violence.
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