There came forth a spirit, and stood before Yahweh, and said, I will entice him. Yahweh said to him, 'How?'
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There came forth a spirit, and stood before Yahweh, and said, I will entice him. Yahweh said to him, 'How?'
Then there came out a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will entice him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith?
And the spirit went out, and he stood before Yahweh. And he said, ‘I myself will entice him.’ And Yahweh said to him, ‘With what?’
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
There came forth a spirit, and stood before Yahweh, and said, I will entice him. Yahweh said to him, 'How?'
Then a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD, and said, ‘I will entice him.’ ‘By what means?’ asked the LORD.
Then a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD, and said, ‘I will entice him.’ ‘By what means?’ asked the LORD.
Then there came out a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will entice him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith?
And there came forth a spirit, and stood before Jehovah, and said, I will entice him. And Jehovah said unto him, Wherewith?
And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will entice him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith?
Then there came forth a spirit and stoode before the Lord, and said, I will perswade him. And the Lord said vnto him, Wherein?
There came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said: I will deceive him. And the Lord said to him: By what means wilt thou deceive him?
And go out doth the spirit, and stand before Jehovah, and saith, I do entice him; and Jehovah saith unto him, With what?
And the spirit goes out, and stands before YHWH, and says, I entice him; and YHWH says to him, With what?
Then a spirit came forward and it stood before Yahweh and said, 'I will entice him.' Yahweh said to him, 'How?'
And the spirit went out, and he stood before Yahweh. And he said, ‘I myself will entice him.’ And Yahweh said to him, ‘With what?’
And there came forth a spirit, and stood before Jehovah and said, I will entice him. And Jehovah said unto him, Wherewith?
A spirit came out, stood before the LORD, and said, ‘I will entice him.’ “The LORD said to him, ‘How?’
Then there came out a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will entice him. And the LORD said to him, With what?
Finally a spirit came and approached the Lord and said, ‘I will trick him.’ ‘How are you going to do that?’ the Lord asked.
Then a spirit came forward and took his place before the Lord and said, I will get him to do it by a trick. And the Lord said to him, How?
And there came forth the spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said: I will entice him. And the LORD said unto him: Wherewith?
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
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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 →
Shared distinctive vocabulary
אֲפַתֶּ֑נּוּ to deceive H6601 occurs in 26 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 20 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 18 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.
Topical passages linked to 2 Chronicles 18:20 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
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.
וַיֵּצֵ֣א הָר֗וּחַ וַֽיַּעֲמֹד֙ לִפְנֵ֣י יְהוָ֔ה וַיֹּ֖אמֶר אֲנִ֣י אֲפַתֶּ֑נּוּ וַיֹּ֧אמֶר יְהוָ֛ה אֵלָ֖יו בַּמָּֽה
There came forth a spirit, and stood before Yahweh, and said, I will entice him. Yahweh said to him, 'How?'
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί ἐκἔρχομαι ὁ πνεῦμα καί ἵστημι ἐνώπιον κύριος καί εἶπον ἐγώ ἀπατάω αὐτός καί εἶπον κύριος ἐν τίς
And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will deceive him. And the Lord said, Whereby?
LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain
On this verse, Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers discusses the Septuagint’s reading. Read the note in Commentary ↓
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 →
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 pâthâh (“to deceive”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on 2 Chronicles 18:20 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
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.
Adam Clarke's Commentary
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
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
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.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
unfoldingWord translationNotes
Door43 World Missions Community
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Rashi
Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)
Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.