What Does 2 Kings 17:9 Mean in the King James?
And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.
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 sets secret wrongdoing beside public construction: what is hidden in allegiance gets built into the landscape of life.
THE MEANING
A hidden allegiance does not stay hidden; it shapes the practices and places that surround the reader. From the watchman’s tower to the fortified city, the verse shows how far those choices reach when what is built is not right before the LORD.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that concealed compromise is harmless because no one sees it dissolves: what remains hidden inwardly can still take shape in the life around the reader.
THE ROOT
וַיִּבְנוּ
wayyivnu
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
Build, construct.
The verb makes the verse’s movement concrete: hidden actions become something built into the cities where people live. English can make the secrecy and the high places sound like separate details; the building shows how concealed allegiance takes durable form.
ALSO GROWS
binyan: Building, construction.
בִּנְיָן
This related word keeps the focus on something deliberately made and given a lasting form.
mivneh: Structure, arrangement.
מִבְנֶה
It highlights how what is built becomes part of the surrounding order, not just a passing act.
ben: Son.
בֵּן
Hebrew tradition links the son with building up a household; that word association echoes how an act can help shape what comes after it.
THE PATTERN
When devotion is misdirected, it takes durable form in the places and practices that organize daily life.
For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.THE THREAD
Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established:“Built” here and “builded” in Proverbs come from בנה (banah), meaning to build. Proverbs names wisdom and understanding as what forms a house; beside this verse, it draws attention to what kind of allegiance is shaping what gets built.
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