What Does 2 Samuel 20:5 Mean in the King James?
So Amasa went to assemble the men of Judah: but he tarried longer than the set time which he had appointed 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 Hebrew makes the “set time” a meeting point: a summons can be underway and still miss the moment appointed for the gathering.
THE MEANING
A call to gather can be real and still arrive too late for its appointed moment. The timing belongs to the work itself; the verse holds the effort to assemble and the delay together without treating them as equivalent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that good intent makes timing incidental: Amasa goes to gather Judah, yet the missed appointed time remains visible.
THE ROOT
מוֹעֵד
moʿed
GROWS FROM
יעד
y-ʿ-d
to appoint, designate, or set a meeting
The word for “set time” is moʿed, an appointed meeting or occasion. Its root family also gives עֵדָה (ʿedah), “congregation,” linking a scheduled moment with people gathered; Amasa passes the time appointed for the call to Judah.
ALSO GROWS
yaʿad: appoint, designate
יָעַד
This is the root verb behind the appointed moment in the verse.
ʿedah: congregation, assembly
עֵדָה
This branch ties the idea of an appointed meeting to people gathered together.
moʿadim: appointed times, meeting times
מוֹעֲדִים
The plural form shows the same root describing recurring appointed occasions.
THE PATTERN
A gathering takes shape around appointed moments, so timing is part of the gathering itself.
These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.THE THREAD
These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.The phrase “in their seasons” translates מוֹעֲדָם (moʿadam), from the same root as moʿed, “set time,” in 2 Samuel. Leviticus places those appointed times beside convocations, revealing how the root joins a moment set apart with people gathered.
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