What Does 2 Kings 6:24 Mean in the King James?
And it came to pass after this, that Ben-hadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria.
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 names siege as binding pressure, a whole city being tightened into distress.
THE MEANING
A threat becomes unmistakable when it gathers force and closes around a whole place. You meet the danger at its most enclosing here: it is real, collective, and unresolved; the verse gives no release yet.
THE ROOT
וַיָּצַר
wayyāṣar
GROWS FROM
צָרַר
tsarar
to bind, tighten, or constrain; to besiege
“besieged” in this verse is wayyāṣar. The verb pictures the attack as a tightening that closes a city’s space. מֵצַר (metsar, narrow place or distress) and צָרָה (tsarah, trouble or distress) keep the same constriction visible as both place and lived pressure.
ALSO GROWS
metsar: narrow place; distress
מֵצַר
Psalm 118:5 uses this narrow-place word for the speaker’s constricted state before being set in a large place.
tsarah: trouble; distress
צָרָה
This branch names the distress felt within the pressure that the siege imposes from outside.
שֹׁמְרוֹן
Shomron
GROWS FROM
שמר
shamar
to guard, keep, or watch
“Samaria” in this verse is Shomron. The Hebrew name Shomron echoes שָׁמַר (shamar, guard or watch). The place-name carries watchfulness into a scene where the city is exposed to an enclosing force.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: keeper; watchman
שֹׁמֵר
The keeper or watchman gives the name’s sound of watchfulness a human form.
mishmeret: guard; watch; charge
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch connects the name’s watchfulness to the protection now put under pressure.
THE PATTERN
Siege and distress share a spatial grammar: pressure closes in, while release is pictured as room.
And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;THE THREAD
I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.Psalm 118:5 uses מֵצַר (metsar, narrow place or distress), a related form in the same bind-and-narrow word-family as the verb translated “besieged” here. Its answer is מֶרְחָב (merchav, broad place), opening the siege’s tightening onto the language of spaciousness.
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