What Does 2 Kings 3:20 Mean in the King James?
And it came to pass in the morning, when the meat offering was offered, that, behold, there came water by the way of Edom, and the country was filled with water.
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 says the offering “ascended” as water arrived, placing what rises and what fills the land in the same moment.
THE MEANING
At the morning offering, water reaches the country from Edom and fills it. The verse holds the offering’s ascent beside provision arriving from beyond the valley. The land’s present emptiness does not define the only shape it can take.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The empty place proves that no provision can reach it.
THE ROOT
כַּעֲלוֹת
kaʿalot
GROWS FROM
עלה
To go up, ascend, rise.
The Hebrew form means “as the offering ascended,” carrying upward movement inside the English “was offered.” The same root names עֹלָה (ʿolah, “burnt offering”), so the verse sets the offering’s rise beside the water’s arrival.
ALSO GROWS
ʿolah: Burnt offering; literally, that which ascends.
עֹלָה
Its name comes from the same rise-root, making the offering’s upward movement audible beneath the English wording.
ʿaliyah: Ascent; going up.
עֲלִיָּה
This noun preserves the root’s movement as a named ascent, echoing the motion hidden in “was offered.”
וַתִּמָּלֵא
vattimmaleʾ
GROWS FROM
מלא
To fill, become full.
The verb describes the country entering fullness: water does not merely appear, it fills the land. The root also names fullness as a state, holding the movement from a place without water to a country filled with it.
ALSO GROWS
maleʾ: To be full; to fill.
מָלֵא
This verbal form names the act and state expressed when the country fills with water.
mĕloʾ: Fullness; full extent.
מְלֹא
The related noun gives language for the fullness this verse depicts spreading across the country.
THE PATTERN
Water reaches dry places through a source or route that was not visible in the lack itself.
Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.THE THREAD
And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar: it is a burnt offering unto the LORD: it is a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD.The word עֹלָה (ʿolah, “burnt offering”) in Exodus shares the עלה (ʿalah, “ascend”) root audible in 2 Kings’ “offered.” That shared root reveals the upward motion beneath the English wording, while the water’s arrival remains its own movement in the scene.
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