What Does 2 Samuel 22:13 Mean in the King James?
Through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled.
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 fire is not added after the light: the brightness before God is already where coals burn.
THE MEANING
In God’s nearness, brightness is not empty illumination: coals burn within the radiance before him. Seeing and burning meet in one image, so what comes into view before God is already aflame.
THE ROOT
בָּעֲרוּ
baʿărû
GROWS FROM
בער
b-ʿ-r
to burn, consume, or be aflame
“kindled” in this verse is baʿărû. The Hebrew names the coals as burning; this root family also includes causing something to burn. The line holds the fire in motion: the radiance before him is where the flame is active.
ALSO GROWS
boʿēr: burning, ablaze
בֹּעֵר
This form keeps attention on fire as an active state, like the coals in the verse.
hibʿîr: to kindle, cause to burn
הִבְעִיר
This causative form echoes the verse’s image of coals being set alight.
נֶגְדּוֹ
negdô
GROWS FROM
נגד
n-g-d
to stand in front or be conspicuous; in another stem, to make known
The word translated “before” carries a sense of what stands out in front; this root also yields words for declaring and for a leader set in front. The coals’ position is part of their disclosure: the brightness makes them visible before him.
ALSO GROWS
neged: in front of, opposite
נֶגֶד
This is the word-family sense that places the burning coals before him.
higgîd: to tell, declare
הִגִּיד
The root’s sense of making something known echoes the way brightness brings the fire into view.
nāgîd: leader, prince
נָגִיד
The word names one who stands at the front, extending the root’s sense of frontness.
THE PATTERN
God’s appearing becomes visible as fire that carries both radiance and consuming force.
And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.For our God is a consuming fire.THE THREAD
At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire.This companion verse shares the Hebrew wording for “brightness before him” and “coals of fire,” while placing clouds and hailstones around the image. The shared words reveal the coals as part of the radiance’s storm image.
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