What Does 2 Kings 3:9 Mean in the King James?
So the king of Israel went, and the king of Judah, and the king of Edom: and they fetched a compass of seven days’ journey: and there was no water for the host, and for the cattle that followed them.
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 describes the kings circling for seven days, and all that movement still leaves the people and cattle without water.
THE MEANING
You can move with others, even for a long and purposeful stretch, and still meet a need the movement has not answered. Here the absence reaches both the host and the cattle, leaving the whole expedition dependent on water it does not have.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that coordinated progress guarantees provision: a seven-day route still leaves the people and cattle without water.
THE ROOT
וַיָּסֹבּוּ
wayyasobbu
GROWS FROM
סבב
sabab
Turn, go around, circle, surround.
“compass” in this verse is wayyasobbu. This verb carries the sense of going around, so the route is a circuit. Its seven days of circling culminate in a lack shared by the whole company: neither host nor cattle has water.
ALSO GROWS
saviv: Around; surrounding.
סָבִיב
This spatial sense makes the circuit in the verse visible as movement around a route.
sovev: Circling; surrounding.
סוֹבֵב
This active form echoes the kings’ circling without bringing water within reach.
דֶּרֶךְ
derekh
GROWS FROM
דרך
darakh
Tread, step, make a path.
The word for the journey also means a way or path, rooted in the act of treading. It gives the route a concrete texture: ground crossed step by step, yet still unable to supply the water the company needs.
ALSO GROWS
darakh: To tread, step, or march.
דָּרַךְ
The root points to the steps by which this journey is made.
midrakh: A footstep, footprint, or foothold.
מִדְרָךְ
This branch keeps the path grounded in what is underfoot, even when the route offers no water.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes thirst a visible human limit that travel cannot solve and ordinary water cannot permanently remove.
And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the LORD, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink.When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:THE THREAD
They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.Both verses use דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, “way” or “path”): here it names the seven-day journey, and there it names the solitary way. The Psalm pairs that path with finding no city to dwell in, deepening the image of movement that does not itself guarantee a place to settle.
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