What Does 2 Kings 7:17 Mean in the King James?
And the king appointed the lord on whose hand he leaned to have the charge of the gate: and the people trode upon him in the gate, and he died, as the man of God had said, who spake when the king came down to him.
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 man the king leans on is set over the gate where the crowd tramples him: his trusted support stands at the very place where the prophecy’s consequence arrives.
THE MEANING
The city’s starving people surge through the gate toward the promised food, and the official who had rejected that promise dies beneath the crowd. He sees the provision arrive but does not share in it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that seeing a promise come true means you will share in its good is undone: this official witnesses the provision and dies without eating.
THE ROOT
נִשְׁעָן
nish'an
GROWS FROM
שען
sha'an
To lean on or provide support.
“leaned” in this verse is nish'an. The king’s reliance is expressed through the same root that names support itself. English gives us a trusted man leaning on a hand; Hebrew makes the dependence explicit, just before that support is stationed where the crowd will crush him.
ALSO GROWS
nish'an: Leaned on; relied upon.
נִשְׁעָן
This is the form used for the king’s reliance on the official in this verse.
mish'en: Support; staff.
מִשְׁעֵן
In Isaiah 3:1, the word names support that can be taken away, echoing how human reliance offers no guarantee of safety here.
וַיִּפְקֹד
vayyifqod
GROWS FROM
פקד
paqad
To attend to, take account of, muster, or appoint.
“appointed” in this verse is vayyifqod. The verb for assigning this officer belongs to a root that also carries the sense of attending to or taking account of someone. His position at the gate is not merely a title: it places him at the point where the consequences of the earlier words meet him.
ALSO GROWS
paqīd: An officer or overseer.
פָּקִיד
This branch names the kind of official appointed to a post such as the gate.
nifqad: Be missed; be absent.
נִפְקַד
This form, as in 1 Samuel 20:18, shows the root’s range from assigning someone a place to noticing their absence.
THE PATTERN
A spoken word can carry a consequence that unfolds as its fulfillment arrives.
Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the LORD would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month.And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.THE THREAD
Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God.The Hebrew root שען (sha’an), meaning to lean on or rely upon, appears in both verses: the king leans on his official, while Isaiah speaks of staying upon God. That shared word makes the king’s human support concrete, and opens the contrast between relying on a person and staying upon God.
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