What Does 2 Samuel 16:20 Mean in the King James?
Then said Absalom to Ahithophel, Give counsel among you what we shall do.
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 action begins before anyone moves: it begins in the counsel shaping what comes next.
THE MEANING
A next move is already taking shape in the counsel gathered around it. The question “what shall we do?” shows that deliberation gives action its first form.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a decision begins only when someone acts dissolves here: counsel is already forming the action.
THE ROOT
עֵצָה
ʿēṣāh
GROWS FROM
יעץ
to advise, deliberate, or form a plan
The root links counsel to the counselor: deliberation is carried by the people giving it, not by an abstract force. Here, the group is asked to furnish its own plan, so the action is already being formed before it is carried out.
ALSO GROWS
yāʿaṣ: to advise or counsel
יָעַץ
The verb names the act of giving direction that the group is being asked to undertake.
yōʿēṣ: counselor or adviser
יוֹעֵץ
This branch shows that counsel is bound to the people who offer it.
ʿēṣāh: counsel, advice, or plan
עֵצָה
The same word can name both advice and the plan taking shape through it.
THE PATTERN
A course of action takes its first shape in the counsel that precedes it.
Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established.Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin:Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?THE THREAD
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.Psalm 1:1 uses the same Hebrew word עֵצָה (ʿēṣāh, counsel), linking the advice requested here to a path a person may walk. It makes the source of counsel visible as part of the next step: “what shall we do?” already carries the influence of those whose direction is received.
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