What Does Nahum 2:6 Mean in the King James?
The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved.
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 palace does not merely get breached; as the river gates open, the Hebrew says it melts.
THE MEANING
The gates of the rivers open, and the palace dissolves. When what has been held back breaks through, even the place that seems strongest loses its form.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that power or imposing walls make a place invulnerable cannot hold when the waters break through.
THE ROOT
נִפְתָּחוּ
niptāḥû
GROWS FROM
פתח
To open or unfasten.
The word translated “opened” shares its root with words for a doorway and a key. The gates are not simply destroyed: they open, releasing the force held behind them.
ALSO GROWS
petaḥ: An entrance or opening.
פֶּתַח
The river gates become openings through which the contained waters can pass.
mafteaḥ: A key; literally, an opener.
מַפְתֵּחַ
The same root links opening with the means of unlocking what was closed.
נָמוֹג
nāmōg
GROWS FROM
מוג
To melt, dissolve, or lose firmness.
“dissolved” in this verse is nāmōg. The palace’s end is pictured as a loss of solidity: it melts away. The same root describes people melting or fainting, so the image reaches beyond the building to the strength within it.
ALSO GROWS
nāmōgû: The inhabitants of the land melt or faint with fear.
נָמֹגוּ
The root describes strength giving way within people as well as in the palace.
yimmōgû: The inhabitants of Canaan melt away.
יִמֹּגוּ
This branch repeats the image of a once-firm presence losing its strength.
THE PATTERN
When waters are released, they expose the limits of whatever seems secure.
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.THE THREAD
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.Both verses use פתח (pataḥ, “to open”) for a boundary giving way to water. Genesis opens the windows of heaven; Nahum opens the river gates, and in both, the opening releases overwhelming waters.
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