What Does 2 Chronicles 28:2 Mean in the King James?
For he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim.
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
A path followed becomes an allegiance poured into visible form.
THE MEANING
The verse shows how a life can take its direction from a pattern and give that allegiance shape in what it makes. The path and the images belong together: what is followed can become what is fashioned and served.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that imitation is only borrowed behavior with no consequence for what a person serves: a followed path can become a fashioned object of devotion.
THE ROOT
מַסֵּכוֹת
massekhot
GROWS FROM
נסך
n-s-k
to pour out or cast, especially metal
“molten images” in this verse is massekhot. The word for a cast image grows from the root for pouring: the object carries the act of its making inside its name. The same root also names a poured drink offering, linking a shaped object and an act of devotion through the image of pouring.
ALSO GROWS
nasakh: To pour or cast
נָסַךְ
This verb reveals the process inside the word for the molten image: it is something poured into shape.
nesekh: A poured offering
נֶסֶךְ
This branch shares the image’s root and shows how pouring can also describe an offering made in devotion.
בְּעָלִים
baalim
GROWS FROM
בעל
b-ʿ-l
lord, owner, or master
The name Baalim is the plural form of a word that also means lords or owners. The verse therefore names not only the images but the mastery to which they are directed.
ALSO GROWS
ba'al: A lord, master, or owner
בַּעַל
This singular form lets the reader hear the meaning carried inside the name of the deity.
baalim: The plural of ba’al: lords or owners
בַּעֲלִים
The plural form in the verse keeps the sense of multiple lords audible beneath the name.
דַּרְכֵי
darkhei
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
to tread or step
A derek, a way or path, is linked to the act of treading. The verse’s “ways” are not merely ideas: they are tracks formed and continued by repeated steps.
ALSO GROWS
derek: A way, path, or road
דֶּרֶךְ
This is the singular form behind “ways,” presenting a course that can be followed.
darakh: To tread or step
דָּרַךְ
This verb brings the path back to footsteps: a way is the course made by going along it.
THE PATTERN
The path a person follows becomes visible in the forms they shape and serve.
Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.THE THREAD
Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing?The Hebrew verb translated “molten” in Isaiah is נָסַךְ, nasakh (pour or cast), the same root behind מַסֵּכָה, massekah (cast image) in this verse. Isaiah makes the act of making unmistakable, then asks what the made image can do.
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