What Does 2 Chronicles 5:6 Mean in the King James?
Also king Solomon, and all the congregation of Israel that were assembled unto him before the ark, sacrificed sheep and oxen, which could not be told nor numbered for multitude.
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 says the offering outruns two kinds of accounting: recounting and assigning a number.
THE MEANING
The verse places the whole congregation before the ark, with sheep and oxen in a quantity no one can count. Its paired verbs let the scale of a shared offering exceed any total a person can make.
THE ROOT
יִסָּפְרוּ
yissāferu
GROWS FROM
ס־פ־ר
To count or recount; also to relate or record.
Here, “told” carries the counting sense of Hebrew ספר (safar, “count or recount”), rather than meaning that the animals cannot be spoken of. Paired with מָנָה (manah, “count or assign”), the verse says the multitude defeats both recounting and numbering.
ALSO GROWS
sāfar: To count, recount, or relate.
סָפַר
This verb names the act the verse says cannot contain the multitude.
sēfer: A book, scroll, or written record.
סֵפֶר
The same root links counting with making a record, underscoring how the offering exceeds an account.
sōfēr: A scribe or recorder.
סוֹפֵר
The scribe’s work grows from the same root: the attempt to reckon and preserve what is before the community.
יִמָּנוּ
yimmānu
GROWS FROM
מ־נ־ה
To count, reckon, appoint, or assign.
“numbered” in this verse is yimmānu. The second verb presents the animals as a set that could be counted or assigned a place in a total. Together with ספר (safar, “count or recount”), it makes the limit clear: neither recounting nor enumeration can contain this abundance.
ALSO GROWS
mānāh: To count, reckon, appoint, or assign.
מָנָה
This is the verb’s root form and shows the act of making a count or allotment.
nimnāh: To be counted, numbered, or included.
נִמְנָה
This related form makes explicit what the verse’s verb conveys: being placed within a reckonable set.
THE PATTERN
When a community gathers around God, devotion takes visible form in shared offerings.
And they spake unto Moses, saying, The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work, which the LORD commanded to make.But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.THE THREAD
Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.Psalm 40:5 uses the same root ס־פ־ר (safar, “count or recount”) in מִסַּפֵּר (missappēr, “counting”) to say that the works exceed enumeration. Here the offerings exceed count; there, the works and thoughts do, linking the verses through the same image of abundance beyond an account.
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