2 Chronicles 20:18

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground; and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before Yahweh, worshipping Yahweh.

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 →

וַיִּקֹּ֧ד

qâdad

H6915

“and · to bow down”

Conjunction + Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 15× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 24:26

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 1985

(Qal) to bow down

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 →

13: words
12: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is וַיִּקֹּ֧ד to bow down H6915 — appearing just 15 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וַיִּקֹּ֧ד to bow down H6915 occurs in 15 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 verbs
9 nouns

Verb forms

וַיִּקֹּ֧ד Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וְיֹשְׁבֵ֣י Qal · Participle Active
נָֽפְלוּ֙ Qal · Perfect
לְהִֽשְׁתַּחֲוֺ֖ת Hithpael · Infinitive Construct

Repetition

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

יְהוָ֔ה LORD H3068 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 24 words from the Hebrew and 27 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 13 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.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to 2 Chronicles 20:18 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Exodus 4:31 The people believed, and when they heard that Yahweh had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.
2 Chronicles 7:3 All the children of Israel looked on, when the fire came down, and the glory of Yahweh was on the house; and they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground on the pavement, and worshiped, and gave thanks to Yahweh, [saying], For he is good; for his loving kindness endures for ever.
Genesis 24:26 The man bowed his head, and worshiped Yahweh.
Job 1:20 Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped.
Psalms 95:6 Oh come, let's worship and bow down. Let's kneel before Yahweh, our Maker,

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 20:18 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיִּקֹּ֧ד יְהוֹשָׁפָ֛ט אַפַּ֖יִם אָ֑רְצָה וְכָל יְהוּדָ֞ה וְיֹשְׁבֵ֣י יְרוּשָׁלִַ֗ם נָֽפְלוּ֙ לִפְנֵ֣י יְהוָ֔ה לְהִֽשְׁתַּחֲוֺ֖ת לַיהוָֽה

Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground; and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before Yahweh, worshipping Yahweh.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Chronicles 20:18 Septuagint · lemma form

καί κύπτω ιωσαφατ ἐπί πρόσωπον αὐτός καί πᾶς ἰουδά καί ὁ καταοἰκέω ἰερουσαλήμ πίπτω ἔναντι κύριος προςκυνέω κύριος

And Josaphat bowed with his face to the ground with all Juda and the dwellers in Jerusalem, and they fell before the Lord to worship the Lord.

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 20:18 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 20:18 And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with [his] face to the ground: and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the LORD, worshipping the LORD.

Ver. 18. And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground.] Incurvasit sese in nares versus terram. - Vat. He made very low obeisance. Among the Jews at this day, the gesture of adoration in their synagogues is the bowing forward of their bodies; for kneeling they use none, as neither do the Greeks. {a}

{a} Sandys’s Relat. of West. Religion.

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.

Joseph Benson's Commentary

2Ch 20:18-19. Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground —

In token of his reverence for God and his message, his belief of the promise, and his thankfulness for so great a favour. The Levites stood up to praise the Lord — By Jehoshaphat’s appointment. With a loud voice on high — With heart and voice lifted up, whereby they showed their confidence in God, and assurance of the accomplishment of the prophet’s prediction.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Declaring his faith and obedience to the word of the Lord, and giving thanks for the deliverance promised.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

Jehoshaphat bowed his head . . . and all Judah, &c.--This attitude was expressive of reverence to God and His Word, of confidence in His promise, and thankfulness for so extraordinary a favor.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) Bowed his head.—The king “bowed, face earthward,” and the people prostrated themselves upon their faces, both “to do worship to Jehovah.” (Comp. Lev_9:24; Jos_5:14; 1Ch_21:16; Exo_34:8.)

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

18. fell] R.V. fell down.

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

And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground,.... Not only in reverence of God, and his prophet, but as a token of his belief of what was said, and his thankfulness for it:

and all Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, fell before the Lord, worshipping him; adoring his goodness to them, in imitation of their king.

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

Bowed his head with his face to the ground, in token of his reverence to God and his message, his belief of the promise, and his thankfulness for so great a favour.

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

The Pulpit Commentary

The infinite relief to the mind of Jehoshaphat and his people finds now fit expression in simple adoration. Would that such first gratitude were but sustained to the end more frequently than it is common to find the case!

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

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

bowed his head with his face to the ground ... fell down before Yahweh

These acts of worship that express humility and submission to God. (See: Symbolic Action)

All Judah

Here "Judah" refers to the people from Judah. AT: "All the people of Judah" (See: Metonymy)

Kohathites and Korahites

These are the names of people groups descending from Kohath and Korah. (See: How to Translate Names)

with a very loud voice

This speaks of all the people praising Yahweh as if they together had one voice. AT: "with very loud voices" (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

bow

worship

descend

praise

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

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 13 words (12 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is qâdad (“to bow down”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word qâdad carries the sense “to bow down.” How does it shape the verse?
How does Genesis 24:26, which shares the word «to bow down», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “LORD” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
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?
«וַיִּקֹּ֧ד» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Joseph Benson's Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 13 Hebrew ↔ 18 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 8 words in this verse.
“LORD” occurs 2× in this single verse.
12 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 13 words in this verse.