2 Chronicles 18:30

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Now the king of Syria had commanded the captains of his chariots, saying, Fight neither with small nor great, save only with the king of Israel.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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הַקָּטֹ֖ן

qâṭân

H6996

“the · small”

Particle, Definite Article + Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 101× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 1:16

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H6962

TWOT: 2009a , 2009b

young, small, insignificant, unimportant - small - insignificant - young - unimportant

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 →

21: words
17: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
7 nouns
2 adjectives
4 prepositions
2 conjunctions
3 particles

Verb forms

צִוָּה֩ Piel · Perfect
לֵאמֹ֔ר Qal · Infinitive Construct
תִּלָּ֣חֲמ֔וּ Niphal · Imperfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

וּמֶ֣לֶךְ king H4428 ×2
אֶת with H854 ×3

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 26 words from the Hebrew and 30 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 21 Hebrew tokens and 25 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 18:30 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 19:11 They struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
Deuteronomy 1:17 You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike; you shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God's: and the cause that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.
1 Kings 20:33–34 Now the men observed diligently, and hurried to catch whether it were his mind; and they said, Your brother Ben Hadad. Then he said, Go you, bring him. Then Ben Hadad came forth to him; and he caused him to come up into the chariot.
1 Kings 20:42 He said to him, Thus says Yahweh, Because you have let go out of your hand the man whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore your life shall go for his life, and your people for his people.
2 Chronicles 15:13 and that whoever would not seek Yahweh, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.

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 18:30 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וּמֶ֣לֶךְ אֲרָ֡ם צִוָּה֩ אֶת שָׂרֵ֨י הָרֶ֤כֶב אֲשֶׁר לוֹ֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר לֹ֚א תִּלָּ֣חֲמ֔וּ אֶת הַקָּטֹ֖ן אֶת הַגָּד֑וֹל כִּ֛י אִֽם אֶת מֶ֥לֶךְ יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לְבַדּֽוֹ

Now the king of Syria had commanded the captains of his chariots, saying, Fight neither with small nor great, save only with the king of Israel.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Chronicles 18:30 Septuagint · lemma form

καί βασιλεύς συρία ἐντέλλω ὁ ἄρχων ὁ ἅρμα ὁ μετά αὐτός λέγω μή πολεμέω ὁ μικρός καί ὁ μέγας ἀλλά ἤ ὁ βασιλεύς ἰσραήλ μόνον

Now the king of Syria had commanded the captains of the chariots that were with him, saying, Fight neither against small nor great, but only against the king of Israel.

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 18:30 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 →

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(30) That were with him.—Kings adds, “thirty and two,” referring to what is related in 1Ki_20:16; 1Ki_20:24, a matter which the chronicler has not noticed. The Syriac and Arabic supply the number here.

With small or great.—So Kings. Our text is literally, with the small or the great.

They compassed about him.—Or, came round against him. Kings, wrongly, “turned aside against him.” In Hebrew the difference turns on half a letter.

But Jehoshaphat cried out.—Probably to bring his followers to the rescue. (1Ki_22:32 ends with these words.)

And the Lord helped him; and God moved (literally, incited, “persuaded,” 2Ch_18:1) them . . . from him.—Drove them away from him. This addition is evidently from the pen of the chronicler himself. It appears that he understood the verb “cried out” in the sense of a cry to God for help, a sense which it often bears, e.g., Psa_22:6.

How God “drove them off” is explained in the next verse. The captains discovered their mistake and retired.

This perfectly natural event is regarded by the chronicler as providential, and rightly so. Hebrew faith “knows nothing of an order of the world which can be separated even in thought from the constant personal activity of Jehovah.”

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

30. the captains of the chariots that were with him] R.V. the captains of his chariots. Thirty-two in number (1 Kin.). While the rest of the Syrian army met the Israelite attack, the chariots were to act as an independent force, whose primary task should be to kill or capture Ahab. The king of Syria felt himself overmatched and thought that the only chance of victory lay in the fall of the Israelite commander. Cp. 2Ki_3:26 (the king of Moab tries to break through to the king off Edom).

Fight ye not with small or great] R.V. Fight neither with small nor great (so in 1 Kin.).

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.

The Pulpit Commentary

Our had commanded stands rendered in the parallel not so explicitly "commanded," but in both cases the Hebrew text is the same (hWxi). Therefore, if the place of vers. 29, 30 were inverted, what reads like the cool suggestion of Ahab in ver. 29 would seem more tolerable. Mean. time, Benhadad"s command argues the intensity of his resentment towards Ahab, and not less ungrateful forgetfulness for the ultimate consideration that Ahab had allowed to him. (1Ki_20:31-34)

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 21 words (17 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is qâṭân (“small”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “small” (qâṭân) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Genesis 19:11 shares this passage’s theme. How do the two illuminate each other?
“king” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «צִוָּה֩» is Piel Perfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 21 Hebrew ↔ 25 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 12 words in this verse.
“king” occurs 2× in this single verse.
17 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 21 words in this verse.