What Does 2 Chronicles 3:8 Mean in the King James?
And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits: and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents.
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 “most holy” is literally the “holy of holies”: the innermost set-apartness is a bounded, equal-sided space, not an undefined abstraction.
THE MEANING
The verse places the innermost set-apart place before you as a space with equal length and breadth, twenty cubits each, wholly overlaid with fine gold. Its repeated language of set-apartness and exact measure makes holiness visible as an ordered center.
THE ROOT
קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים
qodesh ha-qodashim
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To set apart, make distinct for a sacred purpose.
“most holy” in this verse is qodesh ha-qodashim. The Hebrew phrase is “holy of holies,” repeating the same root rather than simply applying the strongest degree of an adjective. The repetition marks a set-apart center within a set-apart house, and the verse gives that center precise dimensions and a gold covering.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart; sacred.
קָדוֹשׁ
The adjective shares the root and names the quality that distinguishes this innermost space.
miqdash: A sanctuary; a set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
This branch makes the connection between set-apartness and a physical dwelling explicit.
THE PATTERN
Gold gives visible form to the objects and spaces that mark God’s dwelling.
And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, within and without shalt thou overlay it, and shalt make upon it a crown of gold round about.And the oracle in the forepart was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in the height thereof: and he overlaid it with pure gold; and so covered the altar which was of cedar.And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.THE THREAD
And the oracle in the forepart was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in the height thereof: and he overlaid it with pure gold; and so covered the altar which was of cedar.The two descriptions give the inner room the same twenty-cubit length and breadth, then place gold over it. The parallel shows that “most holy” names an actual measured center of the temple, not a free-floating label.
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