What Does Habakkuk 2:2 Mean in the King James?
And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.
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 vision is meant to move through a reader: the Hebrew word for “read” also belongs to the language of calling and proclaiming.
THE MEANING
What you see can take a clear, durable form that another person can read and carry; an inward perception becomes shared direction. Clarity lets the message remain available beyond the moment it first appears.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that a meaningful vision must remain mysterious or private; here, intelligibility is part of how the vision travels.
THE ROOT
קֹרֵא
qōrēʾ
GROWS FROM
קרא
To call, proclaim, or read aloud.
“readeth” in this verse is qōrēʾ. English separates reading from calling aloud, but this root holds them together. The reader can be more than a silent viewer: reading can give the written vision a voice that travels.
ALSO GROWS
qəriʾāh: A reading or calling aloud.
קְרִיאָה
It keeps reading and voiced calling within one word family.
miqrāʾ: A reading or a convocation, a gathering called together.
מִקְרָא
The same root links reading with a call that gathers people around a message.
וּבָאֵר
ûḇāʾēr
GROWS FROM
באר
To make clear or explain distinctly.
The Hebrew asks for more than marks that can be seen: the vision is to be set out so its meaning can be understood. In Deuteronomy 1:5, this same verb describes Moses explaining the instruction, giving “plain” the sense of expounding as well as making legible.
ALSO GROWS
bēʾēr: To explain or set out plainly.
בֵּאֵר
This is the verb’s form in Deuteronomy 1:5, where instruction is explained.
bēʾūr: An explanation or clarification.
בֵּאוּר
This related noun preserves the root’s sense of making meaning clear.
חָזוֹן
ḥāzôn
GROWS FROM
חזה
To see or behold.
The vision grows from seeing, but the verse does not leave it as a private perception: it is written, clarified, and read. The root links the vision with the seer while the verse shows how what is seen can pass beyond that seer.
ALSO GROWS
ḥōzeh: A seer, one who sees.
חֹזֶה
It names the person who receives or perceives what is seen.
maḥăzeh: A vision or appearance.
מַחֲזֶה
It shares the root’s seeing-language and echoes the perception that becomes written here.
THE PATTERN
A message becomes shareable guidance when it is set down clearly enough for others to read and carry.
And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly.Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.THE THREAD
For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.The word חָזוֹן (ḥāzôn, “vision”) appears again, linking the written vision in verse 2 with its appointed time in verse 3. Writing holds the vision in a readable form while it is still waiting to speak openly.
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