What Does 2 Chronicles 4:10 Mean in the King James?

And he set the sea on the right side of the east end, over against the south.

2 Chronicles 4:10 · 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.

THE KEY

The Sea’s placement uses a body-facing compass: with east ahead, its right side is south.

THE MEANING

The verse makes the Sea’s location readable from a person facing sunrise: east is ahead, and south lies to the right. What sounds like a list of directions forms one coherent orientation.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The directions are not unrelated coordinates; they align around a person oriented toward the east.

THE ROOT

קֵדְמָה

qedmah

GROWS FROM

קדם

What is in front or comes before; in spatial use, the east, where the sun rises.

“eastward” in this verse is qedmah. The word for east also carries the sense of what is ahead or in front. That makes east the passage’s forward axis: once you face it, the right side falls south.

ALSO GROWS

qedem: East; front; former time or antiquity

קֶדֶם

It links the direction east with what lies ahead and with what came before, giving the placement more than a map coordinate.

qadim: East wind

קָדִים

The directional word extends into the wind that comes from the east, showing how the root names an orientation in the world.

qadam: Come before; precede; meet

קָדַם

This verb preserves the root’s sense of coming in front or ahead, the same spatial idea carried by eastward.

הַיְמָנִית

hayemanit

GROWS FROM

ימן

The right side or right hand; in directional usage, the side to the south when facing east.

The right side is not an arbitrary position here: east is the forward direction, so right corresponds to south. The verse’s “right side” and “south” resolve into one viewpoint.

ALSO GROWS

yamin: Right hand; right side; sometimes the south

יָמִין

This noun can name both the right side and the southern direction, joining the verse’s body-based and geographic coordinates.

yeminah: Toward the right; rightward

יָמִינָה

This directional form shows the root describing movement or orientation toward the right-hand side.

THE PATTERN

Biblical spaces become legible through orientation, with east serving as a defining axis.

And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

Genesis 2:8 · KJVThe garden’s placement is given in relation to the east, making direction part of how the space is understood.

And the breadth of the court on the east side eastward shall be fifty cubits.

Exodus 27:13 · KJVThe court is measured through an explicit eastern orientation, just as the Sea’s position is.

On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates.

Revelation 21:13 · KJVThe city’s ordered gates make its layout legible through the cardinal directions.

THE THREAD

Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar.

Ezekiel 47:1 · KJV

Ezekiel repeats the same eastward and right-side language, then names the south side of the altar. The shared roots make the temple’s facing direction part of how its placement is read.

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