What Does 2 Kings 9:28 Mean in the King James?
And his servants carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem, and buried him in his sepulchre with his fathers in the city of David.
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
In this verse, burial is not disappearance: the same root names both laying him to rest and the grave that receives him.
THE MEANING
The verse holds death and belonging together: a body is carried, given a grave, and placed among its fathers. Its final place remains part of a living map of kinship and memory, tied to Jerusalem and the city of David.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The dead are only remains, with no belonging or claim to a place.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְבְּרֻהוּ
wayyiqberuhu
GROWS FROM
קבר
qabar
to bury; place in a grave
“buried / sepulchre” in this verse is wayyiqberuhu. The Hebrew repeats the same root in “buried” and “sepulchre,” so the act and the resting place share one seed. What English separates into an action and an object, the verse holds together as placing a body and giving it a place.
ALSO GROWS
qeber: grave, tomb
קֶבֶר
This noun from the same root names the place that receives the body.
qevurah: burial, burial place
קְבוּרָה
This branch keeps the act of burial and the place of burial within the same word-family.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
shalem
to be whole or complete; wholeness
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim carries an echo of shalom (שָׁלוֹם, wholeness) with the dual ending -ayim. The body is brought to a city whose name holds wholeness; that name gives the burial a wider horizon without erasing death.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: wholeness, well-being
שָׁלוֹם
This word-family gives Jerusalem’s name its echo of wholeness in the verse.
shalem: whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the name’s wholeness echo concrete beside the verse’s image of a body laid to rest.
דָּוִד
David
GROWS FROM
דוד
dod
beloved
David’s name carries the seed of belovedness. The city of David therefore holds a relational echo alongside the verse’s burial among fathers and its named place.
ALSO GROWS
dod: beloved; also a kinship term
דּוֹד
This word shares the seed associated with David’s name.
dodi: my beloved
דּוֹדִי
This form makes the belovedness in the name’s word-family explicit.
THE PATTERN
Burial gives the dead a named place within human bonds and memory.
And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,And he sought Ahaziah: and they caught him, (for he was hid in Samaria,) and brought him to Jehu: and when they had slain him, they buried him: Because, said they, he is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the LORD with all his heart. So the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom.Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.THE THREAD
And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan.Genesis uses the same קבר (qabar, bury) root that this verse repeats for both “buried” and “sepulchre.” Abraham buries Sarah in a named cave, making the root’s link between burial and place visible across both passages.
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