2 Chronicles 11:12

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

In every city [he put] shields and spears, and made them exceeding strong. Judah and Benjamin belonged to him.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

וּרְמָחִ֔ים

rômach

H7420

“and · spears”

Conjunction + Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute

Appears 15× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Numbers 25:7

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from an unused root meaning to hurl

TWOT: 2172

spear, lance

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

12: words
10: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is וּרְמָחִ֔ים spear H7420 — appearing just 15 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וּרְמָחִ֔ים spear H7420 occurs in 15 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
7 nouns
1 preposition
1 adverb

Verb forms

וַֽיְחַזְּקֵ֖ם Piel · Sequential Imperfect
לְהַרְבֵּ֣ה Hiphil · Infinitive Absolute
וַיְהִי Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

עִ֤יר city H5892 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 19 words from the Hebrew and 22 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 12 Hebrew tokens and 20 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to 2 Chronicles 11:12 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

2 Samuel 13:19 Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore her garment of various colors that was on her; and she laid her hand on her head, and went her way, crying aloud as she went.
2 Samuel 13:22 Absalom spoke to Amnon neither good nor bad; for Absalom hated Amnon, because he had forced his sister Tamar.
2 Chronicles 26:14–15 Uzziah prepared for them, even for all the host, shields, and spears, and helmets, and coats of mail, and bows, and stones for slinging.
2 Chronicles 32:5 He took courage, and built up all the wall that was broken down, and raised [it] up to the towers, and the other wall outside, and strengthened Millo [in] the city of David, and made weapons and shields in abundance.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew 2 Chronicles 11:12 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וּבְכָל עִ֤יר וָעִיר֙ צִנּ֣וֹת וּרְמָחִ֔ים וַֽיְחַזְּקֵ֖ם לְהַרְבֵּ֣ה מְאֹ֑ד וַיְהִי ל֖וֹ יְהוּדָ֥ה וּבִנְיָמִֽן

In every city [he put] shields and spears, and made them exceeding strong. Judah and Benjamin belonged to him.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Chronicles 11:12 Septuagint · lemma form

κατά πόλις καί κατά πόλις θυρεός καί δόρυ καί καταἰσχύω αὐτός εἰς πλῆθος σφόδρα καί εἰμί αὐτός ἰουδά καί βενιαμίν

shields and spears in every several city, and he fortified them very strongly, and he had on his side Juda and Benjamin.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Commentary

Notes on 2 Chronicles 11:12 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

2Ch 11:12 And in every several city [he put] shields and spears, and made them exceeding strong, having Judah and Benjamin on his side.

Ver. 12. And made them exceeding strong.] But sin was at the bottom, and blew them up: their iniquity was their ruin, as Eze 18:30.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(12) Shields.—The “targets” of 2Ch_9:15.

Made them exceeding strong.—Strengthened them (the same word as “fortified” in 2Ch_11:11) very abundantly (l’harbçh meôd). A form of words only used by the chronicler. (See 2Ch_16:8; and comp. Neh_6:18.)

Having Judah and Benjamin on his side.—Literally, and he had (or, there fell to him) Judah and Benjamin. A definition of Rehoboam’s territory. (Comp. 2Ch_10:17.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

12. having Judah and Benjamin on his side] Render, And so Judah and Benjamin became his. Rehoboam’s fortresses (which were scattered all over the country and were not placed on the borders only) were intended to keep Judah in subjection. His appointment of military governors (2Ch_11:11) and his dispersion of his sons among the fortresses (2Ch_11:23) were also parts of the same policy of preparedness to put down revolt.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

For the Levites left their suburbs and their possession,.... The cities and the fields adjacent to them, which were given them in the several tribes, and were in all forty eight; see Jos 21:1 and came to Judah and Jerusalem; to the cities of Judah, which belonged to the Levites; and to Jerusalem, where they exercised their functions:

for Jeroboam and his sons had cast them off from exercising the priest's office unto the Lord; neither suffering them to go to Jerusalem in their courses, as they used to do by turns, nor to perform their office in their own dwellings, according to the law of God, in teaching and instructing the people.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

In every several city, to wit, so fortified, as he said, 2Ch 11:11

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

Having Judah and Benjamin on his side. The mention of both tribes just serves to point for us the fact that Benjamin"s existence and value were not absolutely ignored, but were for a short while quoted before the kingdom of Rehoboam became called by the name of Judah simply.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

2 Chronicles, in the Historical, opens this verse with 12 words (10 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is rômach (“spear”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “spear” (rômach) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does Numbers 25:7, which shares the word «spear», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “city” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וַֽיְחַזְּקֵ֖ם» is a Piel Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 12 Hebrew ↔ 20 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 16 words in this verse.
“city” occurs 2× in this single verse.
10 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 12 words in this verse.