What Does 2 Chronicles 28:8 Mean in the King James?
And the children of Israel carried away captive of their brethren two hundred thousand, women, sons, and daughters, and took also away much spoil from them, and brought the spoil to Samaria.
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 word “brethren” stands beside the taking of two hundred thousand women and children: kinship names the bond, but it does not restrain the violence.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a present truth in view: kinship does not stop power from turning people into captives and their possessions into spoil. The count of two hundred thousand refuses to let the violence remain abstract; the people and what belongs to them are carried into another’s keeping.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that being someone’s brother makes you safe from their violence.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁבּוּ
vayyishbu
GROWS FROM
שבה
sh-b-h
To take captive, to make a prisoner.
“carried away captive” in this verse is vayyishbu. The Hebrew verb keeps the captors as the ones acting: they take, and these families are taken. Its related words for a captive and for captivity bind the act to the condition it leaves behind.
ALSO GROWS
shavuy: A captive; one taken prisoner.
שָׁבוּי
Where the verb names the captors’ action, this word names the person left bearing its result.
shevi: Captivity; the state of being held captive.
שְׁבִי
The seizure becomes a condition imposed on people who remain, in the verse’s own terms, their brethren.
בָּזְזוּ
bazzu
GROWS FROM
בזז
b-z-z
To plunder, to seize as booty.
“took also away” in this verse is bazzu. The Hebrew verb says more than that the goods were moved: they were plundered. The verse places that act beside the capture of the families, showing people and possessions swept into the same violence.
ALSO GROWS
bazaz: To plunder or pillage.
בָּזַז
This verb names the forceful taking that the KJV phrase “took also away” can sound like mere transport.
bizzah: Plunder; booty or spoil.
בִּזָּה
This related noun names what plundering produces: goods treated as booty after being seized.
THE PATTERN
Captivity carries people from their homes into another power’s reach, often alongside the seizure of their possessions.
And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman’s wife.And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.THE THREAD
Now hear me therefore, and deliver the captives again, which ye have taken captive of your brethren: for the fierce wrath of the LORD is upon you.The root שׁבה (sh-b-h) appears in both verses: here in “carried away captive,” and there in “taken captive.” Verse 11 names the seized people again as “your brethren” and calls for their return, showing captivity as an inflicted condition rather than who they are.
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