What Does 2 Kings 21:13 Mean in the King James?
And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down.
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 dish is wiped and flipped: Jerusalem’s judgment leaves no clean side or hidden reserve.
THE MEANING
Jerusalem stands under the measure of Samaria and the plummet of Ahab’s house, then is wiped like a dish and turned face down. The image leaves no hidden side: the surface is cleared, and the vessel is inverted. The verse speaks now of a trusted identity being measured by the pattern it embodies; the name itself does not shield it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that Jerusalem’s sacred name makes its present order untouchable: the verse places Jerusalem under the same measure named by Samaria and Ahab.
THE ROOT
מָחָה
māḥâ
GROWS FROM
מחה
m-ḥ-h
Wipe away, erase, blot out.
“wipe” in this verse is māḥâ. The root מחה names both wiping and blotting out, so an ordinary household action can carry the force of total erasure. Here the dish is wiped and turned over, leaving no side outside the image of judgment.
ALSO GROWS
məḥēh: Blot out.
מְחֵה
The same root is applied to transgressions, showing how wiping can mean erasing a record.
ūmāḥāh: Wipe away tears.
וּמָחָה
The same root can remove tears; its meaning depends on what is being wiped away.
מִשְׁקֹלֶת
mishqōleth
GROWS FROM
שקל
sh-q-l
Weigh.
The plummet is bound to the language of weighing: it tests a structure by a standard. The verse sets that measure beside a line, making the judgment an assessment of the whole city’s order.
ALSO GROWS
shāqal: Weigh.
שָׁקַל
The weighing tests what a kingdom amounts to, echoing the plummet’s assessing function.
sheqel: A unit of weight.
שֶׁקֶל
The related noun makes the root’s weight-and-measure connection concrete.
וְהָפַךְ
wəhāphakh
GROWS FROM
הפך
h-p-kh
Turn, overturn, transform.
“turning it upside down” in this verse is wəhāphakh. The dish is not only wiped; it is turned onto its face. The root can describe overturning a place or changing one thing into another, so the image carries both removal and reversal.
ALSO GROWS
wayyahăphōkh: Overturn.
וַיַּהֲפֹךְ
The same root describes a place being overturned, extending the dish image toward a whole order’s collapse.
nehpəkhū: Were turned into something else.
נֶהְפְּכוּ
The root also marks transformation, deepening the force of the dish being turned over.
THE PATTERN
A plumb line exposes the order a place embodies, so judgment reaches the structure rather than only its visible faults.
Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.And the LORD said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more:And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bath-sheba. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.Psalm 51:1 uses מְחֵה (məḥēh; blot out), from the same root מחה (m-ḥ-h) as Jerusalem’s being wiped. The image shifts from a city emptied in judgment to a speaker asking for transgression to be erased, revealing the root’s reach from public devastation to personal cleansing.
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