What Does 2 Chronicles 32:13 Mean in the King James?

Know ye not what I and my fathers have done unto all the people of other lands? were the gods of the nations of those lands any ways able to deliver their lands out of mine hand?

2 Chronicles 32:13 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

A hand that has conquered before presents its grip as the boundary beyond which deliverance cannot reach.

THE MEANING

This voice points to lands it has conquered and asks whether any god has pulled them from its hand. It turns past violence into a present claim of total control, making the threat larger than what has already been taken: it insists that no release is possible.

THE ROOT

לְהַצִּיל

lehaṣṣîl

GROWS FROM

נצל

n-ṣ-l

To rescue or pull away from danger or a grasp.

“deliver” in this verse is lehaṣṣîl. The root gathers the sense of rescue around pulling someone out of what holds them. Here, that possibility is set against a hand claiming it can keep whole lands in its grip.

ALSO GROWS

hiṣṣîl: He rescued or delivered.

הִצִּיל

The same root names rescue as an act that breaks someone free from danger.

niṣṣal: He was rescued or escaped.

נִצַּל

This form shifts attention from the one who pulls away to the person who gets out of the grasp.

maṣṣîl: One who rescues; a deliverer.

מַצִּיל

The root can name the rescuer as well as the act and the one rescued.

תֵדְעוּ

tēdeʿū

GROWS FROM

ידע

y-d-ʿ

To know, recognize, or perceive through experience.

“know” in this verse is tēdeʿū. The speaker appeals to what has been encountered and done as proof that no escape is possible. The root’s sense of knowing through experience makes the leap visible: a record of past conquests is made to stand for knowledge of every possible future.

ALSO GROWS

yādaʿ: To know or perceive.

יָדַע

This is the same verb family behind the speaker’s demand that the hearers recognize his record.

daʿat: Knowledge or understanding.

דַּעַת

This branch shows the root extending from knowing into what is held as knowledge.

nōdaʿ: Known or made known.

נוֹדָע

It points to what becomes recognized through experience or disclosure.

THE PATTERN

A captor’s claim to be the final hand over a people is answered when deliverance reaches them from beyond that hand.

Thus the LORD saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all other, and guided them on every side.

2 Chronicles 32:22 · KJVThe claim that no one can be pulled from the conqueror’s hand is answered by the LORD delivering Jerusalem from that very hand.

Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore.

Exodus 14:30 · KJVIsrael is brought out of the hand that held it, showing that a captor’s grip does not decide the final outcome.

Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;

2 Corinthians 1:10 · KJVDeliverance is spoken of as past, present, and still to come, outlasting any claim that danger has the final hold.

THE THREAD

The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.

Psalm 34:17 · KJV

The verb ⁨יַצִּילֵם⁩ (yaṣṣîlēm, “he delivers them”) comes from the same root ⁨נצל⁩ (n-ṣ-l, “to rescue or pull away”) as “deliver” here. The image shifts from a conquering hand’s boast to the LORD hearing a cry and pulling people out of trouble.

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