2 Chronicles 9:11

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The king made of the algum trees terraces for the house of Yahweh, and for the king's house, and harps and psalteries for the singers: and there were none such seen before in the land of Judah.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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הָֽאַלְגּוּמִּ֜ים

ʼalgûwmmîym

H418

“the · algum trees”

Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute

Appears 3× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at 2 Chronicles 2:8

Full BDB Definition

Origin: by transposition for H484

TWOT: 89b

a tree (from Lebanon), algum trees

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 →

19: words
17: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is הָֽאַלְגּוּמִּ֜ים algum tree H418 — appearing just 3 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הָֽאַלְגּוּמִּ֜ים algum tree H418 occurs in 3 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
13 nouns
1 pronoun
2 particles

Verb forms

וַיַּ֣עַשׂ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
לַשָּׁרִ֑ים Qal · Participle Active
נִרְא֥וּ Niphal · Perfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

הַ֠מֶּלֶךְ king H4428 ×2
לְבֵית house H1004 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 37 words from the Hebrew and 38 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 19 Hebrew tokens and 31 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 9:11 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

1 Kings 10:12 The king made of the almug trees pillars for the house of Yahweh, and for the king's house, harps also and psalteries for the singers: there came no such almug trees, nor were seen, to this day.
1 Chronicles 23:5 and four thousand were doorkeepers; and four thousand praised Yahweh with the instruments which I made, [said David], for giving praise.
1 Chronicles 25:1 Moreover, David and the captains of the host set apart for the service certain of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals: and the number of those who did the work according to their service was:
Psalms 92:1–3 It is a good thing to give thanks to Yahweh, To sing praises to your name, Most High;
Psalms 150:3–5 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet! Praise him with harp and lyre!
Revelation 5:8 Now when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

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 9:11 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיַּ֣עַשׂ הַ֠מֶּלֶךְ אֶת עֲצֵ֨י הָֽאַלְגּוּמִּ֜ים מְסִלּ֤וֹת לְבֵית יְהוָה֙ וּלְבֵ֣ית הַמֶּ֔לֶךְ וְכִנֹּר֥וֹת וּנְבָלִ֖ים לַשָּׁרִ֑ים וְלֹא נִרְא֥וּ כָהֵ֛ם לְפָנִ֖ים בְּאֶ֥רֶץ יְהוּדָֽה

The king made of the algum trees terraces for the house of Yahweh, and for the king's house, and harps and psalteries for the singers: and there were none such seen before in the land of Judah.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Chronicles 9:11 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ποιέω ὁ βασιλεύς ὁ ξύλον ὁ πεύκινος ἀνάβασις ὁ οἶκος κύριος καί ὁ οἶκος ὁ βασιλεύς καί κιθάρα καί νάβλα ὁ ᾠδός καί οὐ ὁράω τοιοῦτος ἔμπροσθεν ἐν γῆ ἰουδά

And the king made of the pine timber steps to the house of the Lord, and to the king's house, and harps and lutes for the singers: and such were not seen before in the land of Juda.

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 →

Commentary

Notes on 2 Chronicles 9:11 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 →

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Or pillars: meaning, the garnishing, and trimming of the stairs or pillars.

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

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) Terraces.—M’sillôth, which usually means highways, that is, raised paths. The word is an interpretation of mis‘âd, which only occurs in 1Ki_11:12. LXX., ἀναβάσεις; Vulg., “gradus;” Arabic, “pillars.”

Singers.—The singers.

And there were none such seen before in the land of Judah.—A shortened paraphrase of, “There came no such almug trees, nor were seen unto this day” (Kings). “The land of Judah” is a phrase which indicates how utterly the northern kingdom was excluded from the redactor’s thought.

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

11. terraces] Perhaps “raised paths.” In 1Ki_10:12 a different Heb. word is used, which means probably “railings” (“pillars,” A.V.).

psalteries] Cp. 1Ch_13:8 (note).

in the land of Judah] Here the Chronicler speaks as a man of his own age. We should expect, land of Israel.

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

Stairs. Hebrew, "hands," (Du Hamel) or banisters, from the palace to the temple. (Junius)

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).

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

a path מְסִלּוֹת, stairs. In I Kings (10:12) it is written מִסְעָד, [a support] after the manner that they make for those who ascend by way of elevated places and stairs. Some say that מִסְעָד and מְסִילָה are one and the same.

and harps and psalteries for the singers Some say (Jonathan and Rashi to Kings) for the Levites who sing with musical instruments, and Rabbi Eliezer explained it to mean: for the singers who stroll before the king. A similar case is (I Kings 5:12): “and his songs were a thousand and five.” These were secular songs that he composed to sing before him, and that is what is meant (below 35:25): “And Jeremiah lamented over Josiah, and all the male singers and the female singers recited in their lamentations, etc.”

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.

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

Discussion questions

What does “algum tree” (ʼalgûwmmîym) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does 2 Chronicles 2:8, which shares the word «algum tree», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “king” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«וַיַּ֣עַשׂ» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Geneva Bible (1599) and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 19 Hebrew ↔ 31 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 14 words in this verse.
“king” occurs 2× in this single verse.
17 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 19 words in this verse.