What Does 2 Kings 11:17 Mean in the King James?
And Jehoiada made a covenant between the LORD and the king and the people, that they should be the LORD’s people; between the king also and the people.
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 covenant makes the people the LORD’s and places the king inside a binding relationship with them.
THE MEANING
Belonging here runs in two directions: the people belong to the LORD, and the king is bound in covenant with the people. Authority lives within relationship; it is not presented as standing beyond the bond it governs.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a ruler’s authority places him outside mutual obligation: the king himself stands within covenant with the people.
THE ROOT
וַיִּכְרֹת
wayyikrot
GROWS FROM
כרת
To cut; in the covenant phrase, to cut a covenant.
“made a covenant” in this verse is wayyikrot. The English “made” smooths over the word’s cutting image: this bond is enacted with a marked edge. The same root can describe cutting off, so the covenant carries the force of a decisive bond, not just an agreement named in passing.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: Enter or establish a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
This is the same cutting verb used in the verse, showing that covenant-making is expressed as an enacted bond.
yikkaret: Be cut off or removed.
יִכָּרֵת
The root’s language of cutting also marks severance; here it illuminates the covenant as a bond with a definite boundary.
THE PATTERN
Covenant makes belonging a shared bond that orders a people’s relationship with God and with one another.
And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.THE THREAD
In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:The verb translated “made” in both verses comes from כרת (karat, “cut”) and appears with “covenant.” That shared root lets the covenant read as an enacted bond that gives belonging a marked shape.
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