What Does 2 Kings 19:16 Mean in the King James?
LORD, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, LORD, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God.
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 prayer invokes God’s full, active attention: an ear that hears and eyes that witness.
THE MEANING
Hostile words in the present are named before the living God, whose attention is invoked through both ear and eye. The prayer holds the threat fully in view and within hearing; it does not stand alone in the moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A hostile message does not become ultimate just because it is sent with force; the verse places it before the living God as something heard and seen.
THE ROOT
שְׁמַע
shema
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed, and respond.
The root holds hearing and heed together, so the repeated command asks for attention that receives these words and answers them. English “hear” can sound like simple sound reception; the Hebrew keeps response inside the plea.
ALSO GROWS
shemuah: report, news heard
שְׁמוּעָה
The reproach is presented as a report brought into hearing, not as background noise.
shomea: one who hears or listens
שׁוֹמֵעַ
This form keeps the active listener in view: hearing here is attention given to the words.
שְׁלָחוֹ
shelacho
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send forth, release, let go.
The dispatched emissary and the act of sending remain visible in the same root, giving the reproach a directed path into the scene. The plea brings those sent words into God’s attention, where their force is witnessed rather than left with the sender.
ALSO GROWS
shaliach: messenger, envoy; one who is sent
שְׁלִיחַ
The emissary’s role is a sent one; the root makes the delivery of the reproach part of the verse’s meaning.
shilluach: sending away, release
שִׁלּוּחַ
Sending and release share this word family, keeping movement outward inside the verb that describes how the reproach arrives.
THE PATTERN
The living God’s attention joins sight and hearing, so distress is seen and its cry is heard.
And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?Psalm 94 pairs the same hearing and seeing roots in a question about the one who formed the ear and eye. That pairing makes this prayer’s two images a single appeal to the living source of perception.
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