What Does 2 Kings 6:23 Mean in the King James?
And he prepared great provision for them: and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel.
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 captives are fed and released, and their release, not their destruction, is followed by the end of the raids.
THE MEANING
The danger before you is real, yet the enemy can receive food and drink and leave alive. Here, release follows provision, and the raids cease; the threat is neither denied nor answered with slaughter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that safety requires destroying every enemy: these captives are fed, released, and followed by an end to the raids.
THE ROOT
וַיְשַׁלְּחֵם
wayĕšallĕḥēm
GROWS FROM
שׁלח
To send out, send forth, or release.
“sent them away” in this verse is wayĕšallĕḥēm. The verb for sending them away carries the sense of letting them go. Here that release follows a great meal, and the verse links their departure with the raids stopping: provision and release mark a change in the encounter.
ALSO GROWS
shilluaḥ: Sending away; dismissal.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch makes the departure sound like a letting-go, not simply a change of location; the captives return to their master alive.
mishloach: Sending forth; dispatch or extension.
מִשְׁלוֹחַ
The root can also describe something extended outward, making the verse’s sending a movement out from the captor’s reach.
THE PATTERN
Provision given to an enemy can interrupt the cycle of retaliation.
If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink:Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.THE THREAD
And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.The verb translated “sent them away” comes from שׁלח (shalach), the same send-and-release root used here. The preceding verse describes Isaac’s feast; then this shared root marks the departure in peace, linking provision and release across both encounters.
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