What Does 2 Chronicles 4:9 Mean in the King James?
Furthermore he made the court of the priests, and the great court, and doors for the court, and overlaid the doors of them with brass.
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 English repeats “court,” but the Hebrew names a priestly enclosure and a larger precinct, with doors marking a passage through that layered space.
THE MEANING
Here, sacred space has layers: a court for the priests, a greater court, and doors marking a passage into the court. Even the threshold is built and finished, making access a shaped passage through defined space.
THE ROOT
חָצֵר
chatser
GROWS FROM
חצר
Enclosure; a bounded court or settlement.
חָצֵר (chatser, enclosed court) can name both a courtyard and a settlement, holding bounded space and the life within it together. The verse’s priestly court is therefore more than an empty boundary: it is a defined place for people to gather and serve.
ALSO GROWS
chatser: Courtyard or enclosure.
חָצֵר
This is the word used for the priests’ court, emphasizing its bounded space.
chatserot: Settlements or villages; also a plural form of “courtyard.”
חֲצֵרוֹת
The same word-family can name inhabited places, linking the court with a space where people dwell.
דְּלָתוֹת
delatot
GROWS FROM
דלל
To hang down or dangle; by extension, to become low or weak.
“doors” in this verse is delatot. דֶּלֶת (delet, door) is traditionally connected with דָּלַל (dalal, to hang down), while דַּל (dal, lowly or poor) shares the word-family. The door is pictured as a hanging panel that can move, making the threshold a fitted, changeable boundary.
ALSO GROWS
dalal: To hang down or dangle; to become low or weak.
דָּלַל
Its sense of hanging gives the door a concrete shape as a panel suspended across an opening.
dal: Lowly or poor; one brought low.
דַּל
This related form extends the root’s sense of being low, alongside the door’s image of a hanging panel.
THE PATTERN
Sacred access takes shape through ordered thresholds: boundaries distinguish spaces while doors mark a passage through them.
And thou shalt make the court of the tabernacle: for the south side southward there shall be hangings for the court of fine twined linen of an hundred cubits long for one side:For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.THE THREAD
For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.The word translated “courts” shares the חצר (chatser, enclosed court) word-family with the priests’ court in 2 Chronicles. The psalm places a doorkeeper beside those courts, bringing the passage’s images of enclosure and threshold into a scene of belonging.
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