What Does 2 Samuel 7:7 Mean in the King James?
In all the places wherein I have walked with all the children of Israel spake I a word with any of the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to feed my people Israel, saying, Why build ye not me an house of cedar?
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 leaders are charged to tend the people, while God says he never asked them to build him a cedar house.
THE MEANING
God’s presence is pictured as moving among the people, and leadership as tending them. A cedar house is not presented as God’s need; the verse turns attention to the people in whose midst God moves.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
God’s presence or approval depends on a grand sacred building.
THE ROOT
לִרְעוֹת
lirʿot
GROWS FROM
רעה
To pasture or tend a flock.
The word rendered “feed” is לִרְעוֹת (lirʿot), to pasture or tend a flock; the same root names both the shepherd and the pasture. The leaders’ charge is therefore a form of care for living people, while the cedar house is something God says he never requested.
ALSO GROWS
roʿeh: Shepherd; one who tends a flock.
רֹעֶה
This branch makes the leaders’ assigned role concrete: they are to shepherd the people.
mirʿeh: Pasture; a place where a flock feeds.
מִרְעֶה
This branch shows the root extending from the act of tending to the provision and place that sustain the flock.
THE PATTERN
God’s presence is among people and exceeds the structures built to honor him.
And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,THE THREAD
But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?Solomon uses the same word for “house” as the cedar house in this verse, then asks whether any house could contain God. That question opens the cedar-house image further: a structure may be built for God, but it cannot enclose the presence that moves among the people.
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