What Does 2 Kings 13:11 Mean in the King James?
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD; he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin: but he walked therein.
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
Hebrew uses the same root for Jeroboam’s “sins” and his making Israel “sin”: the miss he repeats becomes the road he walks.
THE MEANING
This verse names a live pattern in you: repeated misses can become a path you keep walking. The Hebrew repeats one root in both “sins” and “made Israel sin,” holding together the king’s own missing and the missing he reproduces in others. “He walked therein” gives that pattern a present, lived course.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that repetition turns a harmful pattern into a neutral one: this verse names the repeated path as evil and shows it spreading into a people.
THE ROOT
חַטֹּאות
ḥaṭṭōʾt
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥṭʾ
To miss or err; a missing from the mark.
English separates the king’s “sins” from his having “made Israel sin,” while Hebrew repeats the root חטא (ḥṭʾ, “miss”) in both. The verse shows a miss reproduced across a people, then describes the king walking in that pattern.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: To miss, err, or go wrong.
חָטָא
This is the verb beneath the noun “sins,” keeping the sense of missing visible inside the English word.
heḥĕṭîʾ: To cause someone to miss or lead into error.
הֶחֱטִיא
This causative form appears in “who made Israel sin,” showing the king’s missing carried outward.
הָלַךְ
hālak
GROWS FROM
הלך
hlk
To walk or go.
“walked” in this verse is hālak. The verse ends with movement: he does not merely possess a pattern; he walks in it. The word can describe bodily walking or a way of life, so the repeated missing becomes a route he inhabits.
ALSO GROWS
hōlēkh: One who walks or goes.
הוֹלֵךְ
This form names the person by the movement, echoing how the verse presents the king through the path he continues.
halikhāh: Walking, a course, or conduct.
הֲלִיכָה
This branch shows how walking can name a lived course, not just a single step.
THE PATTERN
What is repeatedly followed can become a path that shapes both a person and those who come after.
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?THE THREAD
And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.Here the same root חטא (ḥṭʾ, “miss”) appears in “sins,” “did sin,” and “made Israel to sin.” It opens this verse’s compressed sequence into a mechanism: a miss is repeated, then made transmissible.
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