What Does 2 Kings 4:11 Mean in the King James?
And it fell on a day, that he came thither, and he turned into the chamber, and lay there.
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 chamber is an upper room by its Hebrew name, so the place of rest is already shaped by ascent.
THE MEANING
Welcome takes bodily form here: a room is entered, and a visitor rests in it. Care becomes usable space, not merely intention. The quiet moment shows how presence can be received without display.
THE ROOT
הָעֲלִיָּה
ha-ʿăliyyāh
GROWS FROM
עלה
עלה (ʿālāh) means to rise, go up, or ascend.
The Hebrew word for this chamber means an upper room and grows from the verb for ascending. Its vertical position is part of its name: the room itself carries the idea of going up.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: He or it went up; ascended.
עָלָה
This verb makes the upward movement audible inside the name of the room Elisha enters.
maʿălāh: Ascent, step, or degree.
מַעֲלָה
This noun shares the root and shows how the act of going up also names an ascent or step.
THE PATTERN
Hospitality becomes tangible when someone is given a place in which to stay.
Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree:Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.THE THREAD
And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.The same Hebrew root, עלה (ʿālāh), appears here as “ascending” and names Elisha’s upper room in 2 Kings. In Genesis it describes upward movement; in 2 Kings that movement has settled into the name of a place.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us