What Does 2 Chronicles 30:7 Mean in the King James?
And be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren, which trespassed against the LORD God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation, as ye see.
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 ruins make inherited betrayal visible, but visibility is the point at which its repetition can stop.
THE MEANING
This verse puts the constriction of a breach with God before you in visible form. It speaks to you as someone who can recognize an inherited pattern without being bound to repeat it. The desolation is not abstract; it is the consequence made plain before your eyes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that inherited failure is destiny: seeing a family’s breach does not make that breach your nature.
THE ROOT
מָעֲלוּ
māʿălû
GROWS FROM
מעל
m-ʿ-l
To act unfaithfully or commit a breach of trust.
“trespassed” in this verse is māʿălû. The word names more than a mistake: it is a breach in the relationship with the LORD. Its root also gives the noun for trespass, holding the act and the breach together.
ALSO GROWS
ma'al: To violate trust or deal treacherously.
מָעַל
This verbal form makes the ancestors’ trespass an act of disloyalty, not just an error.
ma'al: A breach or act of unfaithfulness.
מַעַל
The noun names the rupture that the verse says has become visible in desolation.
לְשַׁמָּה
le-shammah
GROWS FROM
שמם
sh-m-m
To be desolate, devastated, or appalled.
The word carries the sense of ruin that shocks the witness: desolation is something seen and recoiled from. The verse’s “as ye see” places that appalling condition in plain view.
ALSO GROWS
shamem: To become devastated or stunned by ruin.
שָׁמֵם
This verbal branch carries both the ruined condition and the shock it produces.
shemamah: A devastated or abandoned place.
שְׁמָמָה
This noun echoes the visible condition the verse holds before its readers.
וַיִּתְּנֵם
vayyittenem
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
“gave them up” in this verse is vayyittenem. The Hebrew verb is the ordinary language of giving and placing. Here, the ancestors are placed into desolation, so the verse presents the consequence as a condition they are handed over to.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give or put something in a place or condition.
נָתַן
This is the root verb in the verse and emphasizes the act of placing them into desolation.
mattanah: Something given or bestowed.
מַתָּנָה
This related noun shows the root’s reach across what is given; here, what is given is a devastating condition.
THE PATTERN
When people persist in turning from God, the consequence can be a handover into the path they have chosen, making its effects visible.
So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:THE THREAD
If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the LORD; then he shall bring for his trespass unto the LORD a ram without blemish out of the flocks, with thy estimation by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering:The Hebrew root מָעַל (ma’al, act unfaithfully or commit a breach) also names the trespass involving what is set apart to the LORD. That shared root lets you hear the word here as a rupture of trust, whose visible outcome is desolation.
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