What Does 2 Kings 22:17 Mean in the King James?
Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched.
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 Hebrew word אַפִּי (appî, “my anger”) carries the image of a nostril flaring with heat: the verse makes judgment bodily and burning.
THE MEANING
This verse names the consequence of abandoning God for what human hands make: anger is directed against the place shaped by that turning. The fire is not a passing flare; the verse says it will not be quenched. Its severity remains in the wording.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that devotion to what we make is harmless or contained: the verse says its consequence reaches the place itself.
THE ROOT
אַפִּי
appî
GROWS FROM
אַף
af
Nostril or nose; also anger and heat, pictured as a flaring nostril.
The Hebrew calls the wrath אַפִּי (appî), from אַף (af), a word that holds nostril and anger together. With the verse’s fire imagery, anger is not a distant verdict: it is heat rising against this place.
ALSO GROWS
af: Nostril; also anger or heat.
אַף
The same word carries both the bodily image and the force translated as anger.
erekh appayim: Long of nostrils; slow to anger, or slow to flare.
אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם
This expression uses the same word for anger and nostrils, making the verse’s image of heat more visible.
THE PATTERN
When what human hands make replaces its Maker as an object of trust, the turning reshapes its makers and brings consequences into the place they inhabit.
They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.THE THREAD
Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.Exodus 32:10 uses the same Hebrew word אַפִּי (appî, “my anger”) as 2 Kings 22:17. In both verses, the word holds anger and bodily heat together, and the surrounding fire language gives that heat its force.
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