2 Kings 7:11

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He called the porters; and they told it to the king's household within.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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פְּנִֽימָה

pᵉnîymâh

H6441

“within”

Adverb

Appears 13× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Leviticus 10:18

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H6440 with directive enclitic

TWOT: 1782c

toward the inside, within, faceward

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 →

6: words
6: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is פְּנִֽימָה within H6441 — appearing just 13 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

פְּנִֽימָה within H6441 occurs in 12 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
3 nouns
1 adverb

Verb forms

וַיִּקְרָ֖א Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַיַּגִּ֕ידוּ Hiphil · Sequential Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 13 words from the Hebrew and 14 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.

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 Kings 7:11 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיִּקְרָ֖א הַשֹּֽׁעֲרִ֑ים וַיַּגִּ֕ידוּ בֵּ֥ית הַמֶּ֖לֶךְ פְּנִֽימָה

He called the porters; and they told it to the king's household within.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Kings 7:11 Septuagint · lemma form

καί βοάω ὁ θυρωρός καί ἀναἀγγέλλω εἰς ὁ οἶκος ὁ βασιλεύς ἔσω

And the porters cried aloud, and reported to the house of the king within.

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 →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וּקְרָא נַטְרֵי תַרְעָא וְחַוִיאוּ בֵּית מַלְכָּא לְגָיו:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on 2 Kings 7:11 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 →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

2Ki 7:11 And he called the porters; and they told [it] to the king’s house within.

Ver. 11. And they told it to the king’s house.] It was fit that the king and his counsellors should be acquainted with the first, that they might the better order things for the public good.

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

(11) And he called the porters.—Rather, And the porters called. The verb in the Hebrew is singular,and may be used impersonally: “And one called, viz., the warders.” But the LXX., Targum, Arabic, and some Hebrew MSS., read the plural. The Syriac has, “And the porters drew near, and told the house of the king.”

And they told it.—The king’s palace may have been near to the ramparts. If not, the sentries at the gate shouted their news to other soldiers near them, who conveyed it to the palace. The word “within” seems to indicate the former. (The Authorised Version, which is Kimchi’s rendering, cannot be right, because in that case the Hebrew verb would require the preposition “unto,” as in 2Ki_7:10.)

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. And he called] i.e. the one who was nearest and received the news did so. The singular corresponds to the singular ‘porter’ in verse 10. But there is a various reading here in the Hebrew, which the R.V. places on the margin, ‘the porters called’.

and they told it to the king’s house [R.V. household] within] The R.V. renders as in verse 9. We are to understand that one of the number of the watchmen was detached to convey the news. They would not all leave their posts.

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 he called the porters,.... The porter of the city called to the porters of the king's palace:

and they told it to the king's house within; to some of his domestic servants within the palace, and they reported it to the 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

The porters; either his fellow porters of the city; or rather, the porters or guards of the gate of the king’s house.

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

The Pulpit Commentary

And he called the porters; and they told it to the king"s house within; rather, and the porters (or, gate-keepers) called out and told it, etc. arqyi may be a plural before its subject; or the true reading may be Warqyi, which is found in some manuscripts.

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 Kings, in the Historical, opens this verse with 6 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is pᵉnîymâh (“within”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “within” (pᵉnîymâh) shape what this verse is saying?
How does Leviticus 10:18, which shares the word «within», read alongside this verse?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«וַיִּקְרָ֖א» is a Qal 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

These translations choose different wording for 8 words in this verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.