What Does 2 Chronicles 28:3 Mean in the King James?
Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel.
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 verse that raises ritual smoke names, in a different verb, the fire consuming the king’s children.
THE MEANING
The verse places you before incense and children burning at once: the ritual act cannot blur the violence of the other. It names this act among the abominations the LORD casts out.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A religious ritual cannot make violence against children sacred or acceptable.
THE ROOT
וַיַּבְעֵר
vayva’er
GROWS FROM
ב־ע־ר
b-ʿ-r
Burn, kindle, consume.
“burnt his children” in this verse is vayva’er. The Hebrew verb for the children’s burning comes from a root that can also carry the sense of consuming or purging. That range sharpens the verse’s force: the act consumes living children, not an abstraction.
ALSO GROWS
bo’er: Burning.
בֹּעֵר
The same root describes the bush burning with fire in Exodus 3:2, where it names a flame without hiding what burns.
uvi’arta: “You shall put away” or “purge,” as in Deuteronomy 13:5.
וּבִעַרְתָּ
This form uses the same root in language of removing evil, revealing how burning and purging meet in the Hebrew word family.
וַיְקַטֵּר
vayqatter
GROWS FROM
ק־ט־ר
q-ṭ-r
Make smoke; offer incense.
“burnt incense” in this verse is vayqatter. English repeats “burnt,” but the first Hebrew verb belongs to the smoke-making root קטר (q-ṭ-r, make smoke or offer incense), while the children’s burning uses בער (b-ʿ-r, burn or consume). The verse places ritual smoke beside bodily destruction with distinct words.
ALSO GROWS
qetoret: Incense.
קְטֹרֶת
This noun names the substance raised as smoke in the verse’s first act.
qitor: Smoke or vapor.
קִיטוֹר
This related word makes the smoke in the incense clause visible as part of the same root family.
THE PATTERN
When worship turns children into fuel, the text names the violence itself as forbidden or abominable.
And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.THE THREAD
And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.The Hebrew root for burning and consuming in this verse also appears in Deuteronomy’s phrase “put the evil away.” That shared root links the language of burning with the language of purging; here, the verse makes plain that the king’s own children are what he makes burn.
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