What Does 2 Chronicles 34:25 Mean in the King James?
Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not be quenched.
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 verse links forsaking the living source to the work of human hands, then pictures the consequence as anger poured out that cannot be quenched.
THE MEANING
When you leave the living source and give devotion to other powers through what your hands do, the change is not neutral; the verse names it as a rupture with consequence. It holds that consequence without softening it: wrath poured upon this place, not quenched.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It overturns the belief that devotion can shift to powers shaped by human hands without consequence for the relationship with the living source.
THE ROOT
מַעֲשֵׂה
maʿaseh
GROWS FROM
עשה
ʿasah
To do, make, or fashion.
English “works” can sound like deeds alone, but maʿaseh carries the work, act, and thing made: the verse gathers what hands do and produce into one phrase. The same wording elsewhere names idols outright, revealing how human making can become a rival focus of devotion.
ALSO GROWS
ʿasah: To do or make.
עָשָׂה
The verb holds action and making together, keeping the phrase open to both deeds and fashioned things.
ʿoseh: One who does or makes; a maker.
עֹשֶׂה
This form names the agent behind the handiwork, keeping maker and made in the verse’s frame.
עֲזָבוּנִי
ʿazavuni
GROWS FROM
עזב
ʿazab
To leave, abandon, or forsake.
“Forsaken” can sound like passive loss, but עזב is an active leaving or abandoning; the verse ties that departure directly to worship directed elsewhere. The change in allegiance is the movement beneath its anger language.
ALSO GROWS
ʿazuv: Left behind or forsaken.
עָזוּב
This form shows the state that follows the act of leaving named in the verse.
ʿazuvah: Forsaken or deserted.
עֲזוּבָה
This feminine form makes the root’s language of abandonment visible as a condition, deepening the verse’s image of a broken bond.
THE PATTERN
When devotion moves from the living source to human handiwork, the act of worship exposes a rupture.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing?Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.THE THREAD
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.Psalm 115:4 repeats the same מַעֲשֵׂה (maʿaseh, work or thing made), from עשה (ʿasah, do or make), as this verse. Here the hands’ work appears within the provocation; there it is explicitly identified with idols, showing how human work can become what receives devotion.
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