What Does 2 Samuel 2:12 Mean in the King James?
And Abner the son of Ner, and the servants of Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon.
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 men leave מַחֲנַיִם (“Two Camps”), so the verse makes departure from a paired encampment its hidden center.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a group in motion while keeping its point of departure in view: Mahanaim, a place named “Two Camps.” Their direction has changed, but the place they leave still marks the movement.
THE ROOT
מַחֲנַיִם
maḥănayim
GROWS FROM
חנה
To encamp, pitch camp, or settle in a place.
“Mahanaim” in this verse is maḥănayim. The place-name means “two camps” and grows from the verb for encamping. The verse begins with a place already named by paired positions, then describes the company moving out from it.
ALSO GROWS
maḥăneh: Camp, encampment, or host.
מַחֲנֶה
This noun shares the root and makes clear that the place-name carries the idea of a gathered camp.
ḥōneh: One who camps; encamping.
חֹנֶה
This participle shares the root and shows the camp as an act of taking position, not merely a location.
וַיֵּצְאוּ
vayyēṣəʾû
GROWS FROM
יצא
To go out, emerge, or cross from within to without.
“went out” in this verse is vayyēṣəʾû. The verb carries the crossing of a boundary in its own consonants. Beside “Two Camps,” that departure gains a clear contour: an encamped position is being left.
ALSO GROWS
yĕṣîʾāh: Going out, departure, or exit.
יְצִיאָה
This noun names the movement expressed by “went out,” keeping departure and the root’s boundary-crossing sense together.
hôṣîʾ: To bring out or cause to go out.
הוֹצִיא
This causative form shares all three root consonants and shows the same movement when someone or something is led out.
גִּבְעוֹן
Givʿon
GROWS FROM
גבע
To rise or be high; a hill or elevated place.
Gibeon carries the hill-word in its name. The destination is therefore a named rise in the land, giving the movement a particular direction.
ALSO GROWS
givʿāh: Hill or elevated ground.
גִּבְעָה
This word shares the root consonants and makes the height embedded in Gibeon’s name visible.
gevāʿōt: Hills or heights.
גְּבָעוֹת
This plural branch shares the same consonants and extends the root’s image of rising ground.
THE PATTERN
A camp marks a position people may leave, occupy, or be surrounded within.
And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God’s host: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim.The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.THE THREAD
The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.“Encampeth” comes from the same root חנה (ḥānâ, “to encamp”) carried by Mahanaim. Here a camp is the position a group leaves; in the psalm, encampment is a surrounding presence.
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