What Does 2 Kings 13:20 Mean in the King James?
And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year.
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 same Hebrew root בוא (bōʾ, “come” or “enter”) names both the Moabite bands’ entry and the year’s arrival, binding the invasion to a returning season.
THE MEANING
The moment holds an ending and a recurring pressure together: אֱלִישָׁע (Elisha, “My God is deliverance”) is buried, yet Moab’s bands return as the year arrives. The death and renewed incursion stand side by side without the verse resolving their tension.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The end of a life means the returning pressure has ended.
THE ROOT
יָבֹאוּ
yāḇōʾû
GROWS FROM
בוא
To come or enter.
“invaded / coming in” in this verse is yāḇōʾû. The Hebrew repeats this root for the Moabite bands’ entry and the year’s arrival. The shared root makes the raid feel bound to a returning season, not like an isolated entrance.
ALSO GROWS
biʾāh: Entry, arrival.
בִּיאָה
This noun carries the same arrival sense heard in both comings in the verse.
māvōʾ: Entrance, approach.
מָבוֹא
It keeps attention on the point where a force enters a land.
גְּדוּדֵי
gedûdê
GROWS FROM
גדד
To gather as a troop; the root also carries the sense of cutting or making an incision.
“bands” in this verse is gedûdê. The Hebrew גְּדוּד (gedûd, “band” or “troop”) returns in the next verse as another band appears during a burial. The root’s cutting sense adds an image of a force breaking into the land alongside the literal raid.
ALSO GROWS
gedûd: A troop or raiding band.
גְּדוּד
This is the noun used here and repeated for the band in the following verse.
gādad: To cut or make an incision; to gather in troops.
גָּדַד
Its cutting sense evokes the bands’ entry as a breach into the land.
אֱלִישָׁע
ʾĔlîšāʿ
GROWS FROM
ישע
To deliver, bring out from constriction toward spaciousness.
Elisha’s name carries the sense ‘My God is deliverance’ into a line about burial and renewed invasion. The following verse gives that name a startling echo when a dead man touches Elisha’s bones and lives.
ALSO GROWS
yēšaʿ: Deliverance, safety.
יֵשַׁע
It keeps deliverance present within the name beside the threat’s return.
yešūʿāh: Deliverance, rescue.
יְשׁוּעָה
This branch carries the movement out of danger that the name places beside the incursion.
THE PATTERN
A pressure can recur in its season while other events, including an ending, are still unfolding.
And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.THE THREAD
And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.The Hebrew גְּדוּד (gedûd, “band”) appears again as another burial is underway. Then the dead man touches the bones of אֱלִישָׁע (Elisha, “My God is deliverance”), revives, and stands; the returning threat and startling life occupy one scene.
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