What Does 2 Samuel 8:2 Mean in the King James?
And he smote Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive. And so the Moabites became David’s servants, and brought gifts.
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 line turns conquest into a count of who dies and who survives only to serve.
THE MEANING
A ruler’s line allocates death and survival: two measures to killing, one to keeping alive. Those who remain alive become servants and bring gifts, so survival here carries the weight of subjection.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that being spared by power is the same as being free: those kept alive are made servants and bring tribute.
THE ROOT
וַיְמַדְּדֵם
vayemaddedem
GROWS FROM
מָדַד
madad
to measure
“measured” in this verse is vayemaddedem. The verse repeats this measuring verb as the line allocates life and death. Measurement becomes a deliberate division: survival itself is placed inside the ruler’s design.
ALSO GROWS
middah: measure, portion
מִדָּה
The idea of a measured portion echoes the line’s fixed share of death and survival.
limdod: to measure
לִמְדֹּד
This infinitive form uses the same root as the act that divides Moab into those killed and those kept alive.
לְהָמִית
lehamit
GROWS FROM
מוּת
mut
to die; death
“put to death” in this verse is lehamit. The form here means to cause death, making death an action assigned by the ruler. The root brings the ending named by “death” into the verse as a deliberate allocation.
ALSO GROWS
mavet: death
מָוֶת
This noun names the outcome that the measured line assigns to some of the people.
met: dead
מֵת
This form names those who have reached the state produced by the verse’s decision to put them to death.
עֲבָדִים
avadim
GROWS FROM
עָבַד
avad
to work; to serve
The word for servants grows from the root for work and service. After the measured killings, those left alive are described through labor and tribute, so the line’s consequences continue as subjection.
ALSO GROWS
eved: servant
עֶבֶד
This singular form names the status imposed on the Moabites who remain alive.
avodah: work, service
עֲבֹדָה
This noun makes visible the labor contained in the survivors’ new relation to David.
THE PATTERN
A measuring line makes authority concrete by defining what is preserved, included, or laid waste.
The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.THE THREAD
Then said I, Whither goest thou? And he said unto me, To measure Jerusalem, to see what is the breadth thereof, and what is the length thereof.This verse uses the same Hebrew measuring root, מָדַד (madad), as the line drawn over Moab. Here the measurement seeks Jerusalem’s breadth and length, turning the line toward the full extent of a city.
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