What Does 2 Kings 23:17 Mean in the King James?
Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Beth-el.
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 grave marker turns a dead prophet’s proclamation into a witness the present can still recognize.
THE MEANING
A marker keeps a voice visible after its speaker is gone: you can still recognize the prophet through the words spoken against the altar. What is buried remains legible; the place itself holds a message time has not erased.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that a voice disappears when its speaker dies; here the marker preserves who spoke and what was said.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְרָא
wayyiqra
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
Call out, summon, announce, or read aloud.
“proclaimed” in this verse is wayyiqra. The prophet’s words remain a call that can still be recognized after his death. The thing called a “title” is צִיּוּן (tsiyun, a marker or monument): it makes the buried speaker identifiable.
ALSO GROWS
qeri’ah: A call or reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
It keeps the verse’s proclamation within a wider family of spoken calls.
miqra: A reading or convocation.
מִקְרָא
It shows how a call can be gathered and preserved as something heard again.
קֶבֶר
qeber
GROWS FROM
קבר
q-b-r
Bury, inter.
“sepulchre” in this verse is qeber. The root joins the act of burying to the place where the dead are laid. Yet the grave is marked, so burial does not erase the prophet’s identity or the word attached to him.
ALSO GROWS
qabar: To bury.
קָבַר
The verb names the act that places the prophet in the grave.
qevurah: Burial.
קְבוּרָה
The burial remains connected to a marker that keeps the buried witness recognizable.
THE PATTERN
A proclaimed word can outlast its speaker and become recognizable when its appointed moment arrives.
And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee.So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.THE THREAD
And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee.The prophet’s earlier “cried” and this verse’s “proclaimed” share the Hebrew root קרא (q-r-ʾ, call out). The marker points back to the voice that named Josiah and spoke of the altar’s fate.
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