What Does 2 Chronicles 25:23 Mean in the King James?

And Joash the king of Israel took Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, at Beth-shemesh, and brought him to Jerusalem, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate, four hundred cubits.

2 Chronicles 25:23 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The captured king is only the beginning of the defeat: Jerusalem’s wall is breached across four hundred cubits.

THE MEANING

A loss can reach beyond the person who falls and break into the boundary shared by a whole people. Jerusalem carries the sound of wholeness, yet the breach makes the city’s vulnerability concrete and extensive.

THE ROOT

וַיִּפְרֹץ

vayifrotz

GROWS FROM

פרץ

P-R-Ṣ

To break through, burst forth, or spread out.

“brake down” in this verse is vayifrotz. The wall is not merely damaged; it is breached by a force that breaks through a boundary. The same root can describe a breach and an expansion, joining rupture and outward movement in one image.

ALSO GROWS

perets: A breach or break-through; also the name Perez.

פֶּרֶץ

This noun makes the wall’s opening a concrete breach, not just general damage.

parats: To break forth or spread abroad.

פָּרַץ

This verb shows the root’s wider range: the force that breaches a wall can also describe expansion beyond a boundary.

יְרוּשָׁלַ͏ִם

Yerushalayim

GROWS FROM

שלם

Š-L-M

Wholeness, completeness, or being made whole.

“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The city’s name carries the sound of shalom, wholeness, while the verse describes its wall being opened by force. The name and the breach stand together: wholeness is present as the city’s nature even as its boundary is broken.

ALSO GROWS

shalom: Wholeness; well-being.

שָׁלוֹם

It brings the city’s name into tension with the breach that exposes it.

shalem: Whole or complete.

שָׁלֵם

This branch underscores the wholeness carried in the name as the wall’s integrity is broken.

THE PATTERN

A wall’s breach changes what can cross it, exposing what it protected or ending what it divided.

And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:

Isaiah 5:5 · KJVRemoving the wall exposes the vineyard to what the boundary had kept out.

And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire.

Nehemiah 1:3 · KJVThe broken wall leaves the city’s shared boundary visibly vulnerable.

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;

Ephesians 2:14 · KJVHere the wall’s removal ends a division, showing how a breach changes who can come together.

THE THREAD

And David came to Baal-perazim, and David smote them there, and said, The LORD hath broken forth upon mine enemies before me, as the breach of waters. Therefore he called the name of that place Baal-perazim.

2 Samuel 5:20 · KJV

Both verses use ⁨פרץ⁩ (parats), meaning to break through or burst forth. In David’s words the force is pictured as water breaking through; here it opens Jerusalem’s wall across a measured stretch.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us