What Does 2 Chronicles 29:4 Mean in the King James?
And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the east street,
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 Hebrew name for the east street carries the sense of a broad open space: restoration begins by making room to gather.
THE MEANING
The work of renewal begins when those entrusted with care are brought together in a common, open place. The gathering creates room for shared action; it is already part of the repair, even before the work is carried out.
THE ROOT
רְחוֹבָה
reḥovah
GROWS FROM
רחב
to be wide, become spacious
The Hebrew term carries the sense of a broad public space. The priests and Levites gather where there is room for shared work, a breadth that the English word street can leave in the background.
ALSO GROWS
reḥov: A broad public place
רְחֹב
It names the kind of open space where the priests and Levites assemble.
merḥav: An expanse or spacious place
מֶרְחָב
This branch makes the root’s sense of breadth clear and illuminates the roominess of their gathering place.
וַיַּאַסְפֵם
wayyaʾasfēm
GROWS FROM
אסף
to gather, collect, take in
“gathered” in this verse is wayyaʾasfēm. After they are brought in, this verb presents them as a collected group ready for shared work. The root also appears in the word for harvest ingathering, where many yields are brought together into one collection.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsīp: The gathering in of a harvest
אָסִיף
It shows the root at work in bringing many things together as one collected yield.
neʾesaf: To be gathered or taken in
נֶאֱסַף
It echoes the verse’s picture of people being brought together into a group.
THE PATTERN
Shared renewal opens when the people who will carry the work gather in one place before it begins.
And Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said unto them, These are the words which the LORD hath commanded, that ye should do them.And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate; and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded to Israel.And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.THE THREAD
I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.The assembly’s open square is named from the root meaning to widen. Psalm 118:5 uses another branch of that same root for the large place the LORD opens out of distress, so the gathering echoes a movement from constriction into room.
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