What Does 2 Kings 24:10 Mean in the King James?
At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.
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 city named for wholeness is under siege, and the verse holds its name and its enclosure together.
THE MEANING
You see Jerusalem, whose name carries wholeness, under violent enclosure. The siege closes movement around the city, but the name still bears what the city is called.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie undone is that being surrounded means wholeness has vanished; here the name and the siege occupy the same line.
THE ROOT
מָצוֹר
matsor
GROWS FROM
צוּר
tsur
To press in, enclose, or besiege.
“besieged” in this verse is matsor. The city is described as being בתוך a siege: the word makes the pressure a physical enclosure. English gives the condition in one word, while the Hebrew evokes space being pressed shut around the city.
ALSO GROWS
matsor: Siege; an enclosure around a city.
מָצוֹר
This is the word describing Jerusalem’s condition: the city’s space and movement are hemmed in.
ve-tsarti: “And I will besiege” (Isaiah 29:3), from the same root.
וְצַרְתִּי
The verb makes explicit the enclosing action that the noun names here.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
Whole, complete; the root carried in shalom, wholeness.
The city’s name carries the language of shalom, wholeness. The verse places that name beside the siege: enclosure is real, but it does not rename Jerusalem.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
It reveals the meaning carried in Jerusalem’s name even as the city is enclosed.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the contrast with the city’s besieged condition immediate.
וַיַּעֲלוּ
vayya'alu
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿalah
To ascend or rise.
“came up” in this verse is vayya'alu. The threat arrives as an upward movement against Jerusalem before the city is described as enclosed. The verb gives the siege a direction: an outside force approaches, then closes around the city.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: To rise or ascend.
עָלָה
It is the basic movement in “came up,” making the attackers’ approach concrete.
ʿolah: An ascending offering; a burnt offering.
עֹלָה
This noun shares the root’s image of rising, showing how the same seed can describe movement upward.
THE PATTERN
Constricting pressure is pictured as space closing around a city, while release opens the narrow place into breadth.
And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver.For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.THE THREAD
And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.Isaiah uses the same siege root, צוּר (tsur, press in or besiege), in וְצַרְתִּי (ve-tsarti, “I will besiege”). Here the noun names Jerusalem’s condition; there the verb spells out the act of enclosing it.
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