What Does 2 Chronicles 34:19 Mean in the King James?
And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes.
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 king’s torn garment makes visible that the words have reached him as a rupture, not merely as information.
THE MEANING
The verse meets the reader now with words of instruction that expose the gap between what is heard and what is lived. The king’s clothing tears, giving the shock a visible form in what covers him. Hearing here reaches beyond thought and alters the hearer.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that scripture can be fully received as detached information: here, hearing reaches the body and breaks through the surface.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְרַע
wayyiqraʿ
GROWS FROM
קרע
to tear, rend, or split open
The verb names physical tearing open, so “rent” carries a concrete rupture rather than only a private feeling. Joel 2:13 uses this same root for the heart, linking torn clothing with an inward opening.
ALSO GROWS
qeraʿ: a tear or rent
קֶרַע
The noun names the visible result of the action: a break in what had been whole.
qeriʿah: tearing or rending
קְרִיעָה
This form names the act itself, keeping the verse’s response physical and immediate.
שְׁמֹעַ
shəmoaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
to hear, listen, and respond
“heard” in this verse is shəmoaʿ. The form means “hearing,” and the narrative immediately shows its consequence: the king tears his clothes. This root can carry responsive listening, so hearing here is contact that changes the hearer, not sound alone.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: hear, listen, and respond
שְׁמַע
It brings together receiving words and answering them, the movement enacted in the verse.
shemuʿah: report or tidings
שְׁמוּעָה
The branch shows how what is heard can become a message that enters and affects its hearer.
THE PATTERN
When words reach the inner person, recognition becomes perceptible in the hearer’s response.
And Nehemiah, which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the LORD your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law.Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.THE THREAD
And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.Joel uses the same root for tearing and names the heart as what can be torn open. Together, the verses let the king’s torn garment register as the outward edge of an inward rupture.
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