What Does 2 Kings 12:5 Mean in the King James?
Let the priests take it to them, every man of his acquaintance: and let them repair the breaches of the house, wheresoever any breach shall be found.
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 Hebrew pictures repair as making the house strong again at each place where it is broken.
THE MEANING
Resources move through known relationships into the repair of a shared dwelling. Wherever damage appears, strength is applied there; the breach does not define the house.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a visible breach means the whole house is lost dissolves here: the breach is the precise place where repair begins.
THE ROOT
יְחַזְּקוּ
yechazzequ
GROWS FROM
חזק
chazaq
To be strong or firm; to strengthen, make firm, or prevail.
The verb rendered “repair” comes from a root meaning “make strong” or “make firm.” The work is pictured not only as closing a hole but as restoring strength exactly where the house is weakened.
ALSO GROWS
chazaq: Be strong, become firm, prevail.
חָזַק
The same root shows that repair here is an act of strengthening.
Chizqiyahu: YHWH strengthens.
חִזְקִיָּהוּ
The name carries the same root idea: strength is made firm through strengthening.
מַכָּרוֹ
makkaro
GROWS FROM
נכר
nakar
To recognize or discern; the related form can describe what is strange or foreign.
The word for “acquaintance” belongs to the Hebrew word family of recognition. The repair is supplied through people the priests know, making those recognized relationships a path for resources to reach the damaged house.
ALSO GROWS
nakar: Recognize, acknowledge, or discern.
נָכַר
The acquaintance is someone recognized and known.
nokri: A stranger or foreigner.
נָכְרִי
The same word family can name what is unfamiliar, sharpening the contrast between a known person and a stranger.
THE PATTERN
A shared dwelling is restored when people supply what strengthens the damaged places.
So built we the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto the half thereof: for the people had a mind to work.So the workmen wrought, and the work was perfected by them, and they set the house of God in his state, and strengthened it.From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.THE THREAD
And let them deliver it into the hand of the doers of the work, that have the oversight of the house of the LORD: and let them give it to the doers of the work which is in the house of the LORD, to repair the breaches of the house,The same Hebrew verb for “strengthen” and noun for “breach” appear together again. That repeated pairing pictures repair as restoring strength precisely where the house has opened.
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