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2 Kings20:20–21

Manasseh Succeeds Hezekiah

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2 Kings 20:20–21 — Manasseh Succeeds Hezekiah. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

20

As for the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, along with all his might and how he constructed the pool and the tunnel to bring water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wə·ye·ṯer diḇ·rê ḥiz·qî·yā·hū wə·ḵāl gə·ḇū·rā·ṯōw wa·’ă·šer ‘ā·śāh ’eṯ- hab·bə·rê·ḵāh wə·’eṯ- hat·tə·‘ā·lāh way·yā·ḇê ’eṯ- ham·ma·yim hā·‘î·rāh hă·lō- hêm kə·ṯū·ḇîm ‘al- sê·p̄er diḇ·rê hay·yā·mîm lə·mal·ḵê yə·hū·ḏāh

Word by word24 · parsed
וְיֶ֨תֶרwə·ye·ṯerAs for the restH3499
√ yether — properly, an overhanging, iConjunctive wawNounmasculine singular construct
yether: an overhanging, remainder, surplus The closing formula of a reign in Kings always begins here, with what is left over. Strong's takes the root sense as something that overhangs or is left beyond the measure. The compiler is not saying these deeds were small; he is saying they fall outside the one thing he is measuring for, which in Kings is always whether a king did right in the eyes of the LORD.
דִּבְרֵ֤יdiḇ·rêof the actsH1697
√ dâbâr — a wordNounmasculine plural construct
dâbâr: a word, matter, thing In Hebrew a deed is a word. The construct diḇ·rê is the same form that will build "Chronicles" four words later, so that the verse quietly binds a king's acts to the record of them.
חִזְקִיָּ֙הוּ֙ḥiz·qî·yā·hūof HezekiahH2396
√ Chizqîyâh — Chizkijah, a king of Judah, also the name of two other IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
Chizqîyâh: Hezekiah, a king of Judah The Verifier counts the name in 116 verses, and its three shared occurrences with 2 Kings 18:17 and Isaiah 36:2 are part of the basis for the conduit thread below. Strong's gives no more than the identification, "a king of Judah," so nothing here rests on the name's etymology.
וְכָל־wə·ḵālalong with allH3605
√ kôl — properly, the wholeConjunctive wawNounmasculine singular construct
גְּב֣וּרָת֔וֹgə·ḇū·rā·ṯōwhis mightH1369
√ gᵉbûwrâh — force (literally or figuratively)Nounfeminine singular constructthird person masculine singular
gᵉbûwrâh: force, might, strength A feminine abstract noun for power in act. The commentators divide on where Hezekiah's might lay: Pulpit locates it in the early Philistine campaign of 2 Kings 18:8 and adds bluntly that "Against Assyria he was unsuccessful"; Cambridge locates it in wealth, herds and tribute; Gill in "his wars with his enemies, and in the reformation of religion, and abolition of idolatry." Ellicott simply sends the reader to 2 Chronicles 32 and Psalm 48:12 to 13, the psalm that counts the towers of Zion.
וַאֲשֶׁ֣רwa·’ă·šerand howH834
√ ʼăsher — who, which, what, thatConjunctive wawPronounrelative
עָשָׂ֗ה‘ā·śāhhe constructedH6213
√ ʻâsâh — to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest applicationVerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
ʻâsâh: to do or make, in the broadest sense Qal perfect, third masculine singular: he made. The verb of Genesis 1 is here handed to a king with a pick. ⚙ The verse's whole weight rests on this verb, and Isaiah 22:11, standing over these same waterworks, sets the limit: the builders looked to the pool and not to the one who made it.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
הַבְּרֵכָה֙hab·bə·rê·ḵāhthe poolH1295
√ bᵉrêkâh — a reservoir (at which camels kneel as a resting-place)ArticleNounfeminine singular
bᵉrêkâh: a reservoir Strong's derives the sense from the place at which camels kneel to rest, a watering halt. The article matters: not a pool but the pool, which is why Ellicott and Pulpit both correct the older English. Pulpit reasons that "The writer of Kings either knows of one pool only in the neighborhood of Jerusalem, or regards one as so superior that it deserves to be called" the pool. Which basin it was is disputed (see the apparatus).
וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
הַתְּעָלָ֔הhat·tə·‘ā·lāhand the tunnelH8585
√ tᵉʻâlâh — a channel (into which water is raised for irrigation)ArticleNounfeminine singular
tᵉʻâlâh: a channel, watercourse A rare noun, eleven verses in the whole Hebrew Bible by the Verifier's count, and it carries an unusual range: the trench Elijah cut around the Carmel altar (1 Kings 18:32, 35, 38), the channel God cleaves for the thunderbolt (Job 38:25), the watercourses that fed the great tree of Ezekiel 31:4, and, in Jeremiah 30:13 and 46:11, the thing Judah and Egypt will not find, which English versions there render "healing." Hezekiah, the king who was healed in this very chapter, is remembered for cutting one of these.
וַיָּבֵ֥אway·yā·ḇêto bringH935
√ bôwʼ — to go or come (in a wide variety of applications)Conjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
bôwʼ: to go or come (Hiphil: to cause to come, to bring) Hiphil consecutive imperfect: and he caused the water to come in. BSB's infinitive "to bring water into the city" turns a finished act into a purpose clause. The Hebrew keeps it as the next event in the narrative chain: he made, he made, and he brought in. The causative stem is the point: the spring lay outside the wall, the water did not come in of itself, and a king caused it to come.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
הַמַּ֖יִםham·ma·yimwaterH4325
√ mayim — waterArticleNounmasculine plural
הָעִ֑ירָהhā·‘î·rāhinto the cityH5892
√ ʻîyr — a city (a place guarded by waking or a watch) in the widest sense (even of a mere encampment or post)ArticleNounfeminine singularthird person feminine singular
ʻîyr: a city, a place guarded by waking or a watch Strong's root sense is a place kept by watchmen. The form הָעִ֑ירָה carries in itself the direction that English must add with a preposition: city-ward. ⚙ A watched city is exactly the city that cannot go out for water, which is why the conduit, not the wall, is the decisive work of the siege.
הֲלֹא־hă·lō-. . .H3808
√ lôʼ — not (the simple or absAdverbNegative particle
The interrogative negative hălōʼ: the formula expects yes.
הֵ֣םhêm. . .H1992
√ hêm — they (only used when emphatic)Pronounthird person masculine plural
כְּתוּבִ֗יםkə·ṯū·ḇîmare they not writtenH3789
√ kâthab — to grave, by implication, to write (describe, inscribe, prescribe, subscribe)VerbQalQalPassParticiplemasculine plural
kâthab: to grave, to write, to inscribe Qal passive participle: written ones, standing inscribed. Strong's first sense is to grave, to cut into a surface, which is precisely what the workmen in the Siloam inscription quoted by Pulpit did to the rock as they cut toward each other. The compiler appeals to a graven permanence that has not survived: the book he points to is gone, and the tunnel he declines to describe is still there.
עַל־‘al-inH5921
√ ʻal — above, over, upon, or against (yet always in this last relation with a downward aspect) in a great variety of applicationsPreposition
סֵ֛פֶרsê·p̄erthe BookH5612
√ çêpher — properly, writing (the art or a document)Nounmasculine singular construct
çêpher: writing, a document, a scroll Not a bound book but a written thing. Cambridge is careful about what it was: the Chronicler names his sources as the vision of Isaiah and the book of the kings of Judah and Israel, and "How far these are identical with what is meant by the verse before us is not clear."
דִּבְרֵ֥יdiḇ·rêof the ChroniclesH1697
√ dâbâr — a wordNounmasculine plural construct
The same construct as word 1: words of. Deeds and annals, one noun.
הַיָּמִ֖יםhay·yā·mîm. . .H3117
√ yôwm — a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb)ArticleNounmasculine plural
yôwm: a day diḇ·rê hay·yā·mîm, "words of the days," is the Hebrew title English calls Chronicles. Days are what a reign is finally made of, and the phrase measures a king by the same unit that ran out for Hezekiah at fifteen added years in 20:6.
לְמַלְכֵ֥יlə·mal·ḵêof the KingsH4428
√ melek — a kingPreposition-lNounmasculine plural construct
יְהוּדָֽה׃yə·hū·ḏāhof JudahH3063
√ Yᵉhûwdâh — Jehudah (or Judah), the name of five IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
Judah, H3063: the kingdom whose royal record this is, and whose last named king in this unit will be Manasseh.
21

And Hezekiah rested with his fathers, and his son Manasseh reigned in his place.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

ḥiz·qî·yā·hū way·yiš·kaḇ ‘im- ’ă·ḇō·ṯāw ḇə·nōw mə·naš·šeh way·yim·lōḵ taḥ·tāw

Word by word8 · parsed
חִזְקִיָּ֖הוּḥiz·qî·yā·hūAnd HezekiahH2396
√ Chizqîyâh — Chizkijah, a king of Judah, also the name of two other IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
וַיִּשְׁכַּ֥בway·yiš·kaḇrestedH7901
√ shâkab — to lie down (for rest, sexual connection, decease or any other purpose)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
shâkab: to lie down The standing formula for a king's death in Kings, and it is a formula of continuity, not of comfort: to lie down with the fathers is to be gathered into a line. ⚙ Applied to Hezekiah it carries a particular sting, since in this same chapter he was given fifteen years precisely so that he would not yet lie down. The reprieve has now run out, exactly on schedule.
עִם־‘im-withH5973
√ ʻim — adverb or preposition, with (iPreposition
אֲבֹתָ֑יו’ă·ḇō·ṯāwhis fathersH1
√ ʼâb — father, in a literal and immediate, or figurative and remote applicationNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine singular
ʼâb: father, literally or figuratively The plural with suffix names the covenant line, from Abraham down through David. Cambridge and Pulpit both show, from the Chronicler, that the physical burial had already broken with the pattern: the catacomb of David was full, and Hezekiah lay at the ascent above it. The phrase outlives the place.
בְנ֖וֹḇə·nōwand his sonH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular constructthird person masculine singular
מְנַשֶּׁ֥הmə·naš·šehManassehH4519
√ Mᵉnashsheh — Menashsheh, a grandson of Jacob, also the tribe descended from him, and its territoryNounpropermasculine singular
Manasseh, H4519. Gill, who has no room to expound him here, marks the trajectory in six words: of whose wicked reign an account is given in the next chapter. ⚙ The unit's final proper noun is the name of the king who will undo the reform, and the text sets it down without a word of comment, which is itself the comment.
וַיִּמְלֹ֛ךְway·yim·lōḵreignedH4427
√ mâlak — to reignConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
mâlak: to reign Consecutive imperfect, the plain narrative tense. The verb is identical to the one used of every predecessor and every successor, good or evil. Kings does not vary its grammar for a righteous accession; the formula is indifferent, and only the following chapter tells you which kind of king has just been installed.
תַּחְתָּֽיו׃פtaḥ·tāwin his placeH8478
√ tachath — the bottom (as depressed)Prepositionthird person masculine singular
tachath: the bottom, underneath, in the stead of The word of substitution. Every reign in Kings ends with someone standing tachath the last man, and the whole book is the record of that hollow being filled and emptied again, until there is no one left to fill it.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. What is left over — 2 Kings 20:20a

The reign closes on וְיֶ֨תֶר (yether, H3499), the surplus, what Strong's calls properly an overhanging. Everything the compiler will not write is gathered under that word, and it turns out to include the single most durable thing Hezekiah ever did. The commentators fill the gap from elsewhere and do not agree on what the might was: Pulpit places it in the Philistine campaign of 2 Kings 18:8 and adds that against Assyria he was unsuccessful and must have succumbed but for the destruction of Sennacherib's host; Cambridge places it in cattle, cotes and tribute, quoting 2 Chronicles 32:28 to 29; Gill places it in his wars and in the reformation of religion and abolition of idolatry; Ellicott sends the reader to Psalm 48:12 to 13, where the towers of Zion are counted. ⚙ Four readings of one noun, and the text supplies none of them. Kings has one measure, and it is not gᵉbûwrâh.

ii. Water made to come in — 2 Kings 20:20b

Then the one act the compiler does name: עָשָׂ֗ה (ʻâsâh, he made) הַבְּרֵכָה֙ and הַתְּעָלָ֔ה, and וַיָּבֵ֥א, a Hiphil, he caused the water to come, city-ward. Ellicott and Pulpit both insist on the article: the pool, the conduit, not a pool and a conduit. Cambridge reconstructs the engineering from the Chronicler, that Hezekiah stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon and "In some way, by covering over, or diverting, he conveyed the waters of this spring into the city." Pulpit measures the result at 1708 feet, the roof flat, the sides perpendicular, the floor grooved for speed, and then quotes the inscription cut nineteen feet from the southern end, in which the excavators hear each other's voices through three remaining cubits of rock. K&D, characteristically, declines to expound at all and refers the reader back to 2 Kings 18:17. ⚙ The verse is a king making water go where water will not go, in a city whose very name in Strong's is a place kept by a watch. It is the most practical sentence in the chapter and the compiler files it under leftovers.

iii. The book that is not here — 2 Kings 20:20c

The deferral formula closes the reign: הֲלֹא־הֵ֣ם כְּתוּבִ֗ים, are they not, they, written ones, upon the scroll of the words of the days. The participle claims a standing inscription, and Gill records the plain fact that undoes the claim: "a book often referred to in this history, but since lost." Cambridge is more careful still about what that book even was, since the Chronicler names the vision of Isaiah and the book of the kings of Judah and Israel, and "How far these are identical with what is meant by the verse before us is not clear." ⚙ So the canonical verse points confidently at an archive that no longer exists, and the reader is left holding only the sentence that pointed. What survived is not the royal record but the compiler's judgment on it, which is the argument of the book of Kings in miniature.

iv. Lay down, and reigned — 2 Kings 20:21

Two consecutive imperfects and nothing else: וַיִּשְׁכַּ֥ב, he lay down with his fathers, and וַיִּמְלֹ֛ךְ, Manasseh his son reigned תַּחְתָּֽיו, underneath him. The honours are not in this verse; Gill has to bring them in from 2 Chronicles 32:33, the spices burned, the concourse of people, the public mourning. Cambridge and Pulpit both notice what the Chronicler's wording concedes, that the tomb was not the royal catacomb: Pulpit says the catacomb of David being now full, Hezekiah and his descendants had to be buried elsewhere; Cambridge draws the line forward, that from this time the kings of Judah are no longer laid in the tombs of the kings. Henry, who has read the whole episode from verse 12 as a warning against showing our houses and possessions in the pride of our hearts, ends on Revelation 14:13, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. ⚙ The verse itself ends on a name. Manasseh. The best reforming king in Judah since David hands the throne to the worst king in its history, and the compiler adds not one word.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested. Two verses, one theme: Hezekiah could cut a channel through solid rock and could not cut one through his own succession. The Hiphil וַיָּבֵ֥א is the boast of the unit, he caused the water to come in, and it is a real boast, 1708 feet of it, corroborated in stone by the inscription Pulpit quotes. But set that verb beside Isaiah 22:11, which stands over these same waterworks and says the builders did not look to him who made it, and the achievement turns strange. The compiler's own arrangement makes the point without arguing it: the engineering goes in the yether, the leftovers, and the archive that was supposed to hold the details is lost, while the fifteen added years of 20:6 run out on the dot in verse 21 and the name Manasseh is the last word. ⚙ Our reading is that Kings is not sneering at the tunnel. It is measuring it. A man may bring water into a besieged city and still have nothing to bring into the next generation, because water can be routed and a heart cannot. Hezekiah engineered around a siege; he could not engineer around תַּחְתָּֽיו, the hollow underneath him that someone else must fill. The line below this paragraph is our own summary sentence, not a verse of Scripture.

He cut a channel through rock to bring water in, and could cut none through death to bring his own son out.

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The conduit of the upper pool: the place where Assyria stood to speak verbal / quotation: confirmed

The two rare nouns of this verse, הַתְּעָלָ֔ה (tᵉʻâlâh, H8585) and הַבְּרֵכָה֙ (bᵉrêkâh, H1295), have already stood together earlier in this same book and in Isaiah's parallel account: the Rabshakeh takes his stand by the conduit of the upper pool to demand Jerusalem's surrender. K&D send the reader to exactly this verse for the basin and the aqueduct, and JFB likewise cross refer. ⚙ The waterworks are therefore not an appendix to the Assyrian crisis but its stage: the same channel that Assyria used as a place to stand and threaten is the channel Hezekiah used to keep the city drinking.

2 Kings 18:17 · Isaiah 36:2

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H8585 tᵉʻâlâh (in 11 vv, rare), H1295 bᵉrêkâh (in 15 vv, rare) and H2396 Chizqîyâh (in 116 vv). Two rare shared lexemes in a fixed phrase, within the same book and its Isaianic parallel. Not a citation formula: the link is verbal repetition, not quotation.

The same spot, one generation earlier: Ahaz refuses a sign verbal / quotation: confirmed

The Verifier finds both rare nouns again at Isaiah 7:3, where the prophet is told to meet Ahaz at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, with Shear-jashub his son beside him. Ellicott, glossing the pool here, sends the reader to Isaiah 7:3 himself. ⚙ The father stands at that water and refuses to ask a sign; the son stands at that water and digs. Two verses later in our unit the grandson is named, and he will undo the son's work. Kings does not draw this line; we are drawing it, and the only hard basis is the shared lexemes plus Ellicott's cross reference.

Isaiah 7:3

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H8585 tᵉʻâlâh (in 11 vv) and H1295 bᵉrêkâh (in 15 vv), both rare, forming the same construct phrase. Ellicott independently cross references Isaiah 7:3 at this verse. The dynastic reading laid over the verbal link is ours and is not itself verbal.

Other channels: a trench on Carmel and a channel for the thunderbolt structural / thematic: confirmed

The rare noun תְּעָלָה occurs in only eleven verses. Three of them are Elijah's trench around the Carmel altar, which he fills with water until it runs over, and which the fire of the LORD licks up. One is Job 38:25, where the LORD asks who cleft a channel for the torrent. ⚙ Put beside Hezekiah's 1708 feet, the range of the word is its own commentary: a man cuts a channel and water comes; a prophet cuts a channel and fills it with water precisely so that the fire has something to consume; God cuts channels for rain in a wilderness where no man is. No quotation is being claimed here, only a rare word doing three different kinds of work.

1 Kings 18:32 · 1 Kings 18:35 · 1 Kings 18:38 · Job 38:25 · Ezekiel 31:4

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H8585 tᵉʻâlâh (in 11 vv). The lexeme link is real and rare, but the contexts share only the motif of a cut watercourse, so we tier it thematic rather than verbal and claim no quotation.

The channel that cannot be dug: Jeremiah's word for healing structural / thematic: confirmed

The Verifier lists Jeremiah 30:13 and Jeremiah 46:11 among the eleven verses carrying H8585, and there the English versions render the noun not "conduit" but "healing" or "medicine": there is no tᵉʻâlâh for you. ⚙ In this same chapter Hezekiah was healed by a word and a fig poultice, and is remembered by a tᵉʻâlâh cut in rock. Jeremiah, a century later, tells the same city that no tᵉʻâlâh can be found for it. We flag honestly that this is lexical overlap within one Strong's entry and may be two senses of one form rather than a deliberate play, so the link is thematic and suggestive, not verbal.

Jeremiah 30:13 · Jeremiah 46:11

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H8585 tᵉʻâlâh (in 11 vv), rendered "healing" in these two verses. Because the shared form may carry a distinct sense here, we decline the verbal tier and record only the lexical and thematic overlap.

You made a reservoir, and did not look to him who made it structural / thematic: confirmed

The Verifier finds בְּרֵכָה (H1295) at Isaiah 22:9 and at Nehemiah 3:15, the pool of Siloah by the king's garden. Pulpit cites Isaiah 22:9 and 11 here as proof that Jerusalem had more than one pool in Hezekiah's day. ⚙ Isaiah 22 is the sharpest available comment on 2 Kings 20:20, because it describes exactly this programme, the breaches counted, the waters of the lower pool gathered, a reservoir made between the two walls, and then indicts it: you did not look to him who made it. Kings records the works without praise or blame; Isaiah supplies the verdict Kings withholds. The lexeme link is the Verifier's; the juxtaposition is ours.

Isaiah 22:9 · Nehemiah 3:15 · 2 Chronicles 32:30

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H1295 bᵉrêkâh (in 15 vv) at Isaiah 22:9 and Nehemiah 3:15. 2 Chronicles 32:30 is added on commentator attestation only (Cambridge, Gill, JFB, Pulpit all cross refer to it), not on a Verifier-computed lexeme basis.

Which pool? Siloam, or the Pool of the Patriarchs flagged: verify source

The commentators in this brief do not agree on the basin named here. Ellicott states flatly that "The pool of Hezekiah is now the Birket-Hammâm-el-Batrak," the reservoir in the western city by the Jaffa gate. Pulpit argues that "Recent discoveries make it highly probable" that the pool is Siloam or the larger Birket el Hamra just below it, citing the Palestine Exploration Fund statement of April 1886. Cambridge describes a reservoir in the valley between the two hills, fed by an underground passage from Gihon. ⚙ If the pool is Siloam, then John 9:7 sends a blind man to wash in the water Hezekiah routed, and the New Testament touches this verse's masonry. We will not build on that, because the identification is contested by the very sources we are quoting, and the Siloam inscription itself is dated by Sayce only within a two century range and does not name the king.

John 9:7 · Isaiah 22:11

basis: Contested provenance: Ellicott identifies Hezekiah's pool with Birket-Hammâm-el-Batrak, Pulpit with Siloam or Birket el Hamra, and the Siloam inscription is undated beyond "between the eighth and the sixth centuries" (Sayce, quoted by Pulpit). Cross-Testament in any case, so no shared Strong's lexeme is possible between Hebrew 2 Kings and Greek John, and no verbal tier could ever be claimed.

Lay down with his fathers, and the Son who did not structural / thematic: confirmed

The formula of verse 21, וַיִּשְׁכַּ֥ב ... עִם־אֲבֹתָ֑יו ... תַּחְתָּֽיו, runs through Kings on every reign, and Peter at Pentecost turns exactly this formula into an argument: David died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day, therefore the psalm of incorruption speaks of another. Hebrews 7:23 to 24 makes the same move with priests: there were many of them because death prevented them from continuing. ⚙ The succession clause is the Old Testament's quiet refrain of mortality, and the apostolic preaching reads it as a gap waiting to be filled.

Acts 2:29-31 · Hebrews 7:23-24 · Luke 1:32-33

basis: Cross-Testament Greek to Hebrew, so no shared Strong's lexeme is available and no verbal tier is possible. The basis is the recurring royal death and succession formula of Kings, which Acts 2:29-31 explicitly reasons from in the case of David.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The king who lay down and the King whose place no one took ancient/widely-held

Verse 21 is the standard Kings formula, and the standard is the problem: he lay down, and his son reigned underneath him. תַּחְתָּֽיו is the word of substitution, and in Kings it is always death that creates the vacancy to be filled. Peter reasons from this very pattern at Pentecost, that David lay down and his tomb is still here, therefore the promise of an undecaying holy one points past him. Hebrews 7:23 to 24 says it of the priesthood in as many words: they were many because death kept them from continuing, but he holds his office permanently because he continues forever. ⚙ Read forward from 2 Kings 20:21, the gospel claim is precise and narrow: here is at last a king of Judah's line for whom no successor clause is ever written, because nobody ever reigned tachath him. Henry, commenting on this passage, reaches for the same hope in the language of Revelation 14:13, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. This is the apostolic reading, not ours.

Acts 2:29-31 · Hebrews 7:23-24 · Luke 1:32-33

Water caused to come into the besieged city novel

The verb of verse 20 is a Hiphil: וַיָּבֵ֥א, he caused the water to come in, to a city that Strong's defines as a place kept by a watch, a place that cannot go out. ⚙ Our reading is that this is a working picture of salvation as Scripture everywhere frames it, water that does not come to the shut-in city unless someone cuts a way for it from outside. Jesus stands in the temple and cries that anyone who thirsts should come to him and drink, and John 7:37 to 39 is spoken at the feast of Tabernacles, which later Jewish tradition connects with a daily drawing of water at Siloam, the pool at the mouth of a conduit like this one. That connection is traditional, not scriptural, and we name it as such. Isaiah 22:11 marks the limit of the figure from the other side: the men who built these very works were indicted for looking at the reservoir and not at the one who made it. We mark this reading novel in its specific attachment to Hezekiah's conduit; the identification of that conduit with Siloam is contested in our own sources (see the flagged thread), and we do not rest the figure on it.

John 7:37-39 · John 4:13-14 · Isaiah 22:11

The lost book and the book that is not lost ancient/widely-held

The compiler points to a scroll with a Qal passive participle, כְּתוּבִ֗ים, written ones, standing inscribed, and Gill records that the scroll is gone: a book often referred to in this history, but since lost. Cambridge cannot even determine its relation to the Chronicler's sources. ⚙ Every royal archive in this verse has perished and the Scripture that cited it has not, which is already a judgment about which writing endures. The New Testament carries the same contrast into the last judgment, where books are opened and another book, the Lamb's book of life, decides the matter, and where Jesus tells disciples to rejoice not in their works but that their names are written in heaven. Henry, at this very passage, ends on Revelation 14:13: their works do follow them. The figure of two kinds of record is old and widely used; the attachment of it to Hezekiah's lost annals is Henry's move before it is ours.

Luke 10:20 · Revelation 20:12 · Revelation 14:13

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

⚙ Honesty notes for this unit. Sources. Of the ten commentators carried in the brief, four say almost nothing here: Poole has no text on either verse; Barnes gives only "Consult the marginal references"; JFB gives one line referring to 2 Chronicles 32:30; K&D refer the basin and aqueduct back to 2 Kings 18:17 and decline to expound. The Geneva entries for both verses consist of the verse text and a section header with no gloss, so no Geneva voice could honestly be quoted in this unit. Henry's note is a single block covering 20:12 to 21 and is therefore about the Babylonian embassy at least as much as about these two verses; we quoted only its closing sentence and said so.

Capping. The Pulpit entry on verse 20 is capped in the brief with 497 characters omitted, in the middle of its discussion of the Siloam inscription. Both Pulpit excerpts we use fall inside the supplied portion; we make no claim about what the omitted remainder says.

Text and parsing. The interlinear index order for 20:21 lists Hezekiah at index 0 and the verb at index 1, and likewise puts "his son" before "Manasseh" and before the verb; the Hebrew consonantal text reads verb first, way·yiš·kaḇ ḥiz·qî·yā·hū, and way·yim·lōḵ mə·naš·šeh ḇə·nōw taḥ·tāw. Our literal line follows Hebrew syntax, not the index order, while the note keys follow the brief's indices. At 20:20 word 14, הָעִ֑ירָה, the brief tags the final element as a third person feminine singular suffix; we have rendered the sense "city-ward" without asserting a parse the brief does not give. The final word of 20:21 carries a paragraph marker (פ) in the brief's surface form.

What is uncertain. Which pool and which conduit are meant is genuinely disputed inside our own sources, Ellicott naming Birket-Hammâm-el-Batrak and Pulpit arguing for Siloam or Birket el Hamra; we have flagged that thread rather than choosing. The Siloam tunnel inscription quoted by Pulpit is fragmentary, contains his own question marks at two readings, and is dated by Sayce only to a range between the eighth and the sixth centuries, so it corroborates a tunnelling operation but does not by itself name Hezekiah. The book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah is lost (Gill), and its relation to the Chronicler's named sources "is not clear" (Cambridge); no reconstruction of its contents is offered here. All burial details in our commentary come from 2 Chronicles 32:33 by way of Gill, Cambridge and Pulpit, not from this unit, which says nothing about a tomb.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)