Core Glossary
Core Glossary — 2 Chronicles (English → english)
This glossary consolidates every load-bearing term identified in 07_semantic_analysis.md, drawn from the core passage (2 Chronicles 7:11-22) and every chapter of the book (1-36). Per the hard rule, any term already recorded in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json reuses that exact recorded rendering; this glossary notes those reuses explicitly and does not introduce a competing rendering. Risk tiers and categories (Critical/High/Medium/Low; false-friend drift / denominational contest / obsolescence / post-Christian or post-exilic cultural erosion) follow the conventions established in the baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json.
Note on original language: 2 Chronicles is Biblical Hebrew, not Koine Greek (the baseline’s New Testament language). All “Original” fields below are Hebrew.
Reused Baseline Terms (rendering locked exactly per hard rule)
| Term | Baseline rendering | Baseline risk | 2 Chronicles context | Notes on reuse |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| covenant | covenant | High | Ark of the covenant (ch. 5); covenant renewals (chs. 15, 23, 34); Davidic covenant (7:18) | Same legal-document false-friend risk (property/contract “covenant”) applies; extend baseline note to cover the Davidic dynastic promise specifically. |
| glory | glory | Medium (elevated to High in this curriculum’s ch. 5/7 context) | Glory cloud filling the Temple (5:13-14; 7:1-3) | Added risk here: visible/physical theophany may be read as myth/metaphor by skeptical readers, compounding the baseline’s “glory days”/“glory hound” secular-drift caution. |
| holy | holy | Medium | Temple consecrated (7:16); Most Holy Place (ch. 3); priestly consecration (ch. 29) | Same “holier-than-thou”/“holy cow” drift risk applies; extend to cover graded-holiness architecture (ch. 3). |
| sin | sin | High | ”Forgive their sin” (7:14); sin offering (ch. 29) | Same trivialization (“sinfully delicious”) and guilt-averse therapeutic-culture risk applies. |
| prophet | prophet | Medium | Prophet Azariah (ch. 15), seer Hanani (ch. 16), Micaiah (ch. 18), Huldah (ch. 34), mocked prophets (ch. 36) | Same “tech prophet”/“prophet of doom” secular-forecaster drift risk applies. |
| father | Father | Medium | ”David your father” (7:17); “God of their fathers/ancestors” (7:22) | Important sense split: 2 Chronicles uses “father(s)” chiefly for human ancestors/predecessors, a distinct sense from the baseline’s “Father” as a divine title for God; flag both senses so Phase 2 content does not conflate them. |
| david | David | Low | David as covenant standard throughout (7:17-18; recurring “walked in the ways of David”) | Baseline’s note (most readers know only David-and-Goliath) applies with added force: the Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7, presupposed in 7:18) must be actively supplied. |
| israel | Israel | Medium | United kingdom (chs. 1-9); divided kingdom’s northern half (chs. 10+); restored remnant addressed in Hezekiah’s Passover invitation (ch. 30) | Baseline’s political-sensitivity note applies with added force given this book’s land-and-nation theology; also note the historical nuance that “Israel” narrows and widens in reference across the book. |
| god | God | Critical | ”Other gods” as the negative foil throughout (7:19, 22; ch. 22 Baal; ch. 33 Manasseh) | Baseline’s caution against vague substitutes (“a higher power,” “the universe”) extends here to religious-pluralism resistance to any exclusive worship claim, which 2 Chronicles states even more starkly than most New Testament passages. |
| law | law | Medium | Book of the Law found (ch. 34); Law taught by Levites (ch. 17); “commands and decrees” (7:17, 19) | Baseline’s litigious-culture partial-asset note applies; also guard against a simplistic “legalism is bad” flattening of the Chronicler’s positive view of Torah instruction (ch. 17). |
| faith / trust | faith | High | ”Our eyes are on you” (ch. 20); trust vs. foreign alliances (ch. 16, 28) | Baseline’s “faith in humanity”/generic-optimism drift caution applies; 2 Chronicles’ trust-vs-alliance narratives give this doctrine unusually concrete illustration. |
| peace / rest | peace | Medium | National rest under Asa (ch. 14); land given rest | Baseline’s “inner peace”/wellness-culture caution applies; extend to the corporate-national dimension (a whole land’s rest), which ordinary English “peace” language does not default to. |
New Terms Introduced by 2 Chronicles
| # | Term | Original (Hebrew) | Transliteration | Literal meaning | Semantic range | English variants | Contextual theological meaning | Risk tier | Risk type | Doctrine | Primary passages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | the LORD (YHWH) | יְהוָה | YHWH | God’s personal covenant name | Distinct from “Lord”/Adonai (title) and “God”/Elohim (generic deity term) | “the LORD” (small caps, most English Bibles), “Yahweh,” “Jehovah” (older usage) | The specific, self-revealing covenant God, not a generic deity | Critical | Obsolescence + invisible-in-speech typographic convention, compounding baseline lord Critical risk | Temple Worship and God’s Presence | 7:12, 7:14, 7:19-22; throughout |
| 2 | chosen (bachar) | בָּחַר | bachar | To select, choose | Sovereign, purposive divine selection (place, people, dynasty) | “chosen,” “selected,” “elect” | God’s free, sovereign designation of the Temple/people/dynasty | High | False-friend drift (affirmation-culture “you are chosen”) + political sensitivity (echoes baseline election) | Temple Worship and God’s Presence; Conditional Blessing | 7:12, 7:16 |
| 3 | humble themselves (kana) | כָּנַע | kana | To bow down, subdue oneself | Submission, self-abasement, often in repentance | ”humble themselves,” “humble oneself” | The foundational posture of the fourfold repentance response | High | Cultural erosion (self-esteem culture’s ambivalence toward humility; “humble brag” idiom) | Conditional Blessing and National Repentance | 7:14; 12:6-7,12; 33:12,19,23 |
| 4 | called by my name | נִקְרָא־שְׁמִי עֲלֵיהֶם | niqra shemi aleihem | ”My name is called upon them” | Covenant-ownership formula | ”called by my name,” “who bear my name” | Identifies the covenant people as belonging to God, not merely labeled | High | Obsolescence (archaic idiom easily under-glossed) | Temple Worship and God’s Presence; Conditional Blessing | 7:14 |
| 5 | turn (shuv) | שׁוּב | shuv | To turn, return | Repentance (turning toward God) or apostasy (turning away), same root both directions | ”turn,” “return,” “repent” (doctrine name) | Concrete change of direction/behavior, not mere remorse | High | Cultural erosion (archaic revivalist coding vs. therapeutic “personal growth” reframing) | Conditional Blessing and National Repentance | 7:14, 7:19 |
| 6 | forgive (salach) | סָלַח | salach | To forgive, pardon | Corporate/national forgiveness of covenant guilt | ”forgive,” “pardon” | God’s removal of guilt that triggered covenant curse | Medium | Individualization drift (therapeutic “forgive yourself”) | Conditional Blessing and National Repentance | 7:14 |
| 7 | heal their land (rapha) | רָפָא אֶת־אַרְצָם | rapha et artsam | ”Heal their land” | Corporate, territorial/agricultural restoration | ”restore their land,” “heal their land” | Reversal of covenant curse at the national/territorial level | High | False-friend drift (contemporary “healing” is individual/medical/psychological) | Conditional Blessing and National Repentance | 7:14 |
| 8 | walk before me (halak lephanai) | הָלַךְ לְפָנַי | halak lephanai | ”To walk before/in the presence of” | Whole-life conduct lived consciously before God | ”walk before me,” “walk with God” | Personal covenant faithfulness, not isolated acts | Medium | Obsolescence (dead metaphor to unchurched readers) | Faithful and Unfaithful Kings | 7:17; recurring evaluative formula |
| 9 | commands and decrees (chuqqim u-mishpatim) | חֻקִּים וּמִשְׁפָּטִים | chuqqim u-mishpatim | ”Statutes and judgments” | Comprehensive covenant law, fixed and case-law forms | ”commands and decrees,” “statutes and ordinances” | Concrete, content-full covenant obedience | Medium | Litigious-culture partial asset with legalism-caricature risk (shared with baseline law) | Faithful and Unfaithful Kings | 7:17, 7:19 |
| 10 | establish the throne (kun / haqimoti) | הֲקִימוֹתִי כִּסֵּא | haqimoti kisse | ”I will establish/raise up the throne” | Confirming a durable royal dynasty | ”establish your throne,” “confirm your kingdom” | The Davidic covenant’s dynastic promise, here conditioned on obedience | High | Obsolescence of the underlying 2 Samuel 7 covenant background | Faithful and Unfaithful Kings; Davidic Covenant (baseline) | 7:18 |
| 11 | other gods / exclusivity claim (elohim acherim) | אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים | elohim acherim | ”Other gods” | The negative foil to exclusive YHWH worship | ”other gods,” “false gods,” “idols” | God’s total intolerance of rival worship | Critical | Religious pluralism resistance to exclusivity claims | Faithful and Unfaithful Kings | 7:19, 7:22; chs. 22, 25, 28, 33 |
| 12 | uproot (nathash) | נָתַשׁ | nathash | To pluck up, tear away | Forcible removal from land as covenant curse | ”uproot,” “tear away,” “expel” | The literal historical mechanism fulfilled in the Babylonian exile | Medium | Obsolescence (agricultural metaphor); needs explicit link to ch. 36 fulfillment | The Exile as Covenant Consequence | 7:20; fulfilled ch. 36 |
| 13 | object of mockery / byword (mashal ve-sheninah) | מָשָׁל וְלִשְׁנִינָה | mashal ve-shninah | ”Proverb and byword” | Becoming proverbial evidence of judgment among nations | ”an object of mockery and ridicule,” “a byword” | Public, not private, national disgrace | Low-Medium | Obsolescence (“byword” nearly extinct) | The Exile as Covenant Consequence | 7:20 |
| 14 | abandoned the LORD (azab) | עָזְבוּ אֶת־יְהוָה | azvu et YHWH | ”They forsook the LORD” | The Chronicler’s standard covenant-lawsuit formula for national disaster | ”abandoned,” “forsook” | Explicit theological causation for national judgment | High | Resistance to theological (vs. purely political/military) causation in a secular-explanatory culture | The Exile as Covenant Consequence | 7:22; 12:1; 24:18; 28:6; 36:14-16 |
| 15 | high place (bamah) | בָּמָה | bamah | Elevated cultic worship site | Legitimate pre-Temple worship site; illegitimate rival site post-Temple | ”high place” | Tracks the shift from acceptable to condemned worship after Temple centralization | Medium | Obsolescence; status-shift needs active explanation each occurrence | Temple Worship and God’s Presence | 1:3; 14:3; 17:6; 20:33; 33:3 |
| 16 | wisdom (chokmah) | חָכְמָה | chokmah | Skill, discernment | Divine gift for righteous rule | ”wisdom” | God-given, not self-generated, capacity for covenant leadership | Medium | Secularized “life-hack”/“crowd wisdom” drift | (Solomon narrative; supports Faithful Kings doctrine) | 1:10-12; 9:1-8 |
| 17 | kingdom (mamlakah) | מַמְלָכָה | mamlakah | Royal dominion | The political, historical kingdom of Judah/Israel | ”kingdom” | Distinct from the baseline’s “kingdom of God” (spiritual reign) | High | Conflation risk with kingdom_of_god; political sensitivity | Faithful and Unfaithful Kings | ch. 10 onward |
| 18 | wrath/anger of the LORD (qetseph) | קֶצֶף | qetseph | Wrath, anger | Covenant-judicial anger provoked by unfaithfulness | ”wrath,” “anger” | Righteous, relational response to real covenant breach, not caprice | Medium | Therapeutic-culture resistance to divine anger as a category | Conditional Blessing; Exile as Covenant Consequence | 12:7; 36:16 |
| 19 | seek the LORD (darash) | דָּרַשׁ | darash | To seek, inquire of | Active, covenantal dependence on and consultation of God | ”seek the LORD,” “seek God” | The Chronicler’s signature evaluative marker of faithful kings | Medium | Open-ended “spiritual seeker” drift, losing specific covenantal object | Faithful and Unfaithful Kings | 14:4,7; 17:4; 20:3-4; 31:21 |
| 20 | rest (nuach) | נוּח | nuach | To rest, be quiet/settled | National peace/security as covenant blessing | ”rest,” “peace” | Corporate, territorial rest, not individual psychological calm | Medium | Wellness-culture “inner peace” drift | Conditional Blessing and National Repentance | 14:1,5-6 |
| 21 | oath (shevuah) | שְׁבוּעָה | shevuah | Oath, sworn commitment | Formal, binding covenant-renewal commitment | ”oath,” “covenant oath” | Sealing a nation’s covenant commitment | Low-Medium | Minor: legal/courtroom usage is a partial asset | Faithful and Unfaithful Kings; Covenant | 15:12-15 |
| 22 | seer (chozeh / ro’eh) | חֹזֶה / רֹאֶה | chozeh / ro’eh | ”One who sees” | A prophetic figure, synonym-adjacent to “prophet" | "seer” | God’s spokesperson, especially in court-history contexts | Low | Obsolescence; fantasy-fiction “seer/fortune-teller” association | Inspiration of Scripture (extended); Faithful and Unfaithful Kings | 16:7,10; 19:2; 29:25 |
| 23 | fear of the LORD (yirat YHWH) | יִרְאַת יְהוָה | yirat YHWH | Reverent awe before God | Foundational disposition for just rule and wisdom | ”fear of the LORD” | Reverence and submission, not terror | High | False-friend drift (dread/phobia sense dominant in contemporary “fear”) | Faithful and Unfaithful Kings | 19:7,9 |
| 24 | fasting (tsom) | צוֹם | tsom | Ritual abstention from food | Corporate repentance and dependence on God | ”fast,” “fasting” | National, covenantal, God-directed act, not self-optimization | High | False-friend drift (diet/wellness “intermittent fasting” dominant contemporary sense) | Conditional Blessing and National Repentance | ch. 20 |
| 25 | Baal | בַּעַל | Ba’al | ”Lord/master” (proper name of a Canaanite storm-god) | Primary historical rival deity to YHWH | ”Baal” | Concrete, historically real rival deity, not an abstraction | Medium | Obsolescence; needs concrete historical identification | Faithful and Unfaithful Kings | ch. 22-23, 28, 33 |
| 26 | pride (gavah libbo) | גָּבַהּ לִבּוֹ | gavah libbo | ”His heart became high/lifted up” | Destructive self-exaltation against God’s ordained order | ”pride,” “his heart was lifted up” | Reversal of prior faithfulness; violates graded holiness (Uzziah, Amaziah, Hezekiah’s near-fall) | Critical | False-friend drift — contemporary “pride” is dominantly positive (self-esteem culture, “Pride” identity-affirmation usage), nearly inverted from the biblical warning | Faithful and Unfaithful Kings | ch. 26 (also 25:19; 32:25) |
| 27 | cleanse (taher) | טָהַר | taher | To purify, make clean | Ritual and moral purification of sacred space/persons | ”cleanse,” “purify” | Precondition for restored covenant worship after defilement | Medium | Hygiene/wellness-culture “detox cleanse” drift | Reform under Hezekiah and Josiah | ch. 29 |
| 28 | sin offering / guilt offering (chattat) | חַטָּאת | chattat | Sin, sin offering | Both the guilt and the atoning sacrifice for it | ”sin offering,” “guilt offering” | Real atonement for actual guilt, not ceremonial formality | High | False-friend drift (secular “sacrifice” = generic self-denial); parallels baseline’s atonement/propitiation escalation rule | Reform under Hezekiah and Josiah | ch. 29 |
| 29 | Passover (pesach) | פֶּסַח | pesach | ”Passing over” | Exodus-deliverance festival; here, national covenant-renewal celebration | ”Passover” | Unifying covenant-renewal act across a divided nation | Medium | Supersessionism-adjacent risk if framed as purely historical/superseded; contemporary living-Judaism anchor is a partial asset | Reform under Hezekiah and Josiah | chs. 30, 35 |
| 30 | remnant (she’erith) | שְׁאֵרִית | she’erith | Remainder, survivors | Covenant-hope category for survivors of judgment/division | ”remnant” | Continued includability in covenant renewal despite prior judgment | Medium | Obsolescence; church-flavored rarity in ordinary speech | Hope of Restoration | 30:6 |
| 31 | Book of the Law (sepher hattorah) | סֵפֶר הַתּוֹרָה | sepher hattorah | ”Book/scroll of the Torah” | The physical, textual authority behind covenant renewal | ”Book of the Law” | Reform triggered by God’s own written word, not royal initiative alone | High | Contemporary academic/secular “ancient text as human artifact” framing, echoing baseline inspiration_of_scripture | Reform under Hezekiah and Josiah | ch. 34 |
| 32 | lament/mourning (qinah) | קִינָה | qinah | Dirge, funeral lament | Righteous grief over a faithful king’s death | ”lament,” “mourned” | Distinguished from judgment-provoked “appalled” mockery (7:21) | Low | Minor; stable concept in contemporary English | (Josiah narrative) | ch. 35 |
| 33 | exile/captivity (galuth / shebi) | גָּלוּת / שְׁבִי | galuth / shebi | Deportation, captivity | Forced removal to Babylon as covenant judgment | ”exile,” “captivity” | Involuntary judicial consequence, not lifestyle choice or metaphor | Medium | Loosened secular usage (“self-imposed exile,” “tax exile”) obscures the forced, judicial character | The Exile as Covenant Consequence | ch. 36 |
| 34 | land’s sabbath rest | (relates to שַׁבָּת shabbat) | shabbat | Rest, cessation | Covenant land-sabbath law (cf. Leviticus 25-26) fulfilled through exile | ”the land enjoyed its sabbaths” | Even judgment operates within God’s prior covenant framework | Medium | Obsolescence; no cultural reference point for sabbatical land-rest law | The Exile as Covenant Consequence | 36:21 |
| 35 | the LORD stirred the spirit (he’ir…ruach) | הֵעִיר…רוּחַ | he’ir…ruach | ”Aroused/stirred the spirit” | God’s providential influence on a pagan king’s own will | ”the LORD stirred the spirit of Cyrus” | Sovereign providence over even non-believing rulers, not personal Spirit-indwelling | High | Doctrinal-conflation risk with baseline holy_spirit (must be explicitly distinguished) | Hope of Restoration; Providence (baseline) | 36:22 |
| 36 | decree of Cyrus | (historical proclamation, no single Hebrew technical term) | — | Royal edict | Historically documented act of policy fulfilling prophetic word | ”decree,” “proclamation” | Historical fact functioning as fulfillment of God’s spoken word, not mere political coincidence | Medium | Should be affirmed as historical fact, consistent with baseline’s resurrection/historical-claims rule | Hope of Restoration | 36:22-23 |
Risk Summary
| Tier | Count | Representative terms |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 4 | the LORD (YHWH); other gods/exclusivity claim; pride; God (reused from baseline) |
| High | 12 | chosen; humble themselves; called by my name; turn (shuv); heal their land; establish the throne; abandoned the LORD; kingdom; fear of the LORD; fasting; sin offering; Book of the Law; the LORD stirred the spirit; glory (elevated) |
| Medium | 16 | forgive; walk before me; commands and decrees; uproot; wrath/anger; seek the LORD; rest; oath; Baal; cleanse; Passover; remnant; exile/captivity; land’s sabbath rest; decree of Cyrus; high place; wisdom; covenant (reused) |
| Low | 3 | object of mockery/byword; seer; lament/mourning |
Human theologian review required for all Critical and High tier terms per baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json conventions. Native speaker review recommended for Medium tier. Automated review sufficient for Low tier.
Critical Risk Terms
Election
Approved rendering: election
Transliteration: election
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Rejected alternatives: an election (the near-total dominant contemporary sense: a political vote, e.g. ‘the presidential election’)
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. Cross-reference note for 2 Chronicles: this curriculum’s new term ‘chosen’ (Hebrew bachar, 7:12,16) is the Old Testament root of the same theological category the baseline documents under ‘election’ — God’s sovereign, purposive, unilateral choice, not a majority vote. See the new entry ‘chosen’ below; the same political-vote false-friend risk and the same caution against flattening into affirmation-culture ‘you are chosen’ language both apply.
Lord
Approved rendering: Lord
Transliteration: Lord
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: boss / master (attempts at modernization that lose the term’s exclusivity and worship-worthiness), a British Lord (the aristocratic title sense, especially salient for British/Commonwealth readers)
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. 2 Chronicles compounds this Critical risk with a distinct, additional problem specific to the Old Testament: the small-capitals convention ‘the LORD’ (rendering God’s personal covenant name YHWH) versus ‘Lord’ (a title, Adonai) versus ‘lord’ (an ordinary noun) is entirely invisible in speech, audio, and many display fonts. See the new entry ‘the_lord_yhwh’ below, which this curriculum treats as a related but distinct Critical-risk term requiring its own mandatory clarification, not merely a repetition of this baseline note.
Providence
Approved rendering: providence
Transliteration: providence
Doctrine: Providence
Rejected alternatives: everything happens for a reason (a common contemporary secular folk-spiritual idiom expressing impersonal fate rather than a personal, purposive God), Providence (the proper noun — the capital city of Rhode Island, USA)
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. 2 Chronicles 36:22 extends this doctrine into a doctrinally sensitive Old Testament case: ‘the LORD stirred the spirit of Cyrus,’ God’s providential governance of a PAGAN, non-believing ruler’s own will. See the new entry ‘lord_stirred_the_spirit’ below, which must be explicitly distinguished from the baseline’s ‘holy_spirit’ entry (personal Trinitarian indwelling) to avoid a serious doctrinal conflation.
God
Approved rendering: God
Transliteration: God
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: a higher power (a common, deliberately vague contemporary substitute, e.g. in recovery-program language), the universe (a New-Age-influenced impersonal substitute, e.g. ‘the universe has a plan for you’)
Original: אֱלֹהִים
Category: God
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. 2 Chronicles states the exclusivity of the true God even more starkly and repeatedly than most New Testament passages, through an entire narrative arc of kings judged specifically for tolerating rival worship (‘other gods,’ 7:19,22; chs. 22, 25, 28, 33). The baseline’s caution against vague substitutes (‘a higher power,’ ‘the universe’) extends here to contemporary religious-pluralism resistance to any exclusive worship claim at all.
The Lord Yhwh
Approved rendering: the LORD
Transliteration: YHWH
Doctrine: The Divine Name (YHWH)
Rejected alternatives: Yahweh / Jehovah (accurate transliterations, but rejected as the PRIMARY rendering to preserve consistency with the wider English Bible translation tradition and the NLT site-wide citation standard), the Eternal / the Almighty (devotionally common substitutes that lose the specific covenant-name distinction entirely)
Original: יְהוָה
Category: God
NEW TERM, Critical. Distinct from, and compounding, the baseline’s existing Critical ‘lord’ entry. The small-capitals convention ‘the LORD’ renders God’s personal, self-revealed covenant name (YHWH), distinct from ‘Lord’ (a title, Adonai) and ‘God’ (a generic-deity term, Elohim) — but this typographic distinction is entirely INVISIBLE when the text is read aloud, heard, or displayed without small-caps support, and it occurs on nearly every page of this book. State explicitly, on first use in every document, that small-capitals ‘the LORD’ renders God’s own personal covenant name, not a generic title. Jewish tradition treats the Name with extreme reverence (never pronounced aloud, substituted with ‘Adonai’/‘HaShem’ in speech) — this reverence should be respected, not treated as mere superstition, when comparative context is supplied.
Other Gods
Approved rendering: other gods
Transliteration: elohim acherim
Doctrine: Exclusive Worship of the LORD
Rejected alternatives: staying spiritually devoted (a generic softening that erases the specific exclusivity claim), false gods / idols (acceptable near-synonyms usable alongside the primary rendering)
Original: אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים
Category: Idolatry
NEW TERM, Critical. 7:19,22 and throughout (chs. 22, 25, 28, 33). Contemporary Western religious pluralism (‘many paths to God,’ ‘all religions point to the same truth’) and consumer-spirituality culture are broadly resistant to exclusive-worship claims. 2 Chronicles states this exclusivity even more starkly and repeatedly than most New Testament passages and must not be softened. Comparative theology note: Jewish (Shema) and Islamic (tawhid) traditions offer the strongest structural agreement; Hindu religious pluralism and destination-culture pluralism both resist the claim on principle, for different underlying reasons — must not present Catholic/Orthodox veneration practices as equivalent to the condemned Baal worship.
Pride
Approved rendering: pride
Transliteration: gavah libbo
Doctrine: Pride and Downfall
Rejected alternatives: take pride in yourself / Pride (identity-affirmation) (the dominant, overwhelmingly POSITIVE contemporary senses — self-esteem culture and the celebratory cultural/political usage — nearly inverted from the biblical sense and explicitly rejected as competing, not compatible, meanings)
Original: גָּבַהּ לִבּוֹ
Category: Sin
NEW TERM, Critical. Ch. 26 (also 25:19; 32:25). ‘His heart became high/lifted up’ — destructive self-exaltation against God’s ordained order, violating the Temple’s graded-holiness architecture (Uzziah’s unlawful incense-burning). The single most inverted false-friend term identified in this whole curriculum: contemporary English ‘pride’ carries an overwhelmingly positive dominant connotation, structurally comparable to the baseline’s treatment of ‘righteous/self-righteous.’ Must be actively and explicitly distinguished from the positive contemporary connotation on EVERY substantive occurrence — mandatory clarification, not optional. Comparative theology note: virtually every religious tradition surveyed condemns pride/arrogance, an unusually broad point of convergence; only the destination culture’s dominant secular/therapeutic idiom inverts the term’s valence.
High Risk Terms
Faith
Approved rendering: faith
Transliteration: faith
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: faith in humanity / a leap of faith (secularized idioms meaning generic optimism or an unsupported gamble, not trust in a specific person)
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, risk tier, and rejected alternatives reused exactly. In 2 Chronicles, this doctrine is given unusually concrete narrative illustration through the trust-vs.-foreign-alliance contrast (Asa’s Aram alliance, ch. 16; Ahaz’s Assyria alliance, ch. 28; Jehoshaphat’s ‘our eyes are on you,’ ch. 20). The baseline’s caution against generic optimism applies directly: Chronicles’ ‘trust’ always has a specific object (the LORD) contrasted with a specific alternative (a foreign king’s army), not vague hopefulness.
Sin
Approved rendering: sin
Transliteration: sin
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Rejected alternatives: sinfully delicious / my one sin (trivialized marketing and joking usage, e.g. dessert advertising)
Original: חַטָּא / חַטָּאָה
Category: Sin
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. 2 Chronicles 7:14 makes forgiveness of ‘their sin’ explicitly corporate and national, not individual; contemporary therapeutic culture’s ‘forgive yourself’ language risks individualizing and internalizing what the text presents as God’s forgiveness of an entire covenant people. See also the new term ‘sin_offering’ (chattat, ch. 29) for the cultic/sacrificial dimension of this same root.
Glory
Approved rendering: glory
Transliteration: glory
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: glory days (nostalgic secular usage for past success), a glory hound (a pejorative term for self-seeking attention)
Original: כָּבוֹד
Category: God
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering reused exactly; RISK ELEVATED from the baseline’s Medium to High for this curriculum, consistent with assets/bible_term_registry.json and 07_semantic_analysis.md, because 2 Chronicles 5:13-14 and 7:1-3 present the glory (kavod) as a VISIBLE, PHYSICAL, historically witnessed cloud filling the Temple, not merely a poetic or nostalgic figure of speech. Beyond the baseline’s ‘glory days’/‘glory hound’ caution, this curriculum must actively state the event as claimed historical fact, applying the same plain-historical-claims handling the baseline requires for the resurrection.
Covenant
Approved rendering: covenant
Transliteration: covenant
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: a restrictive covenant (the dominant contemporary legal sense: a binding clause in a property deed, employment contract, or loan agreement)
Original: בְּרִית
Category: Covenant
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. 2 Chronicles applies this term to the ark of the covenant (ch. 5), the Davidic dynastic covenant reaffirmed and conditioned in 7:17-18, and three separate national covenant-renewal ceremonies (chs. 15, 23, 34). The baseline’s real-estate/contract-law false-friend caution applies to all of these; extend it specifically to the Davidic dynastic promise, which is both permanently secured in one sense (2 Samuel 7) and conditioned on obedience in another (7:18) — a tension with no everyday English parallel that must be actively unpacked, not flattened into either ‘unconditional promise’ or ‘conditional contract’ alone.
Father
Approved rendering: Father
Transliteration: Father
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Original: אָב / אֲבוֹת
Category: Covenant
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering reused exactly; RISK ELEVATED from the baseline’s Medium to High for this curriculum per assets/bible_term_registry.json, because 2 Chronicles’ DOMINANT usage of ‘father(s)’ is ancestral/genealogical (‘David your father,’ 7:17; ‘the God of their ancestors,’ 7:22) rather than the baseline’s relational divine title for God. This is an important SENSE SPLIT: readers must not conflate the covenant-continuity formula ‘God of their fathers’ with ‘Father’ as a name for God himself; both are legitimate English Bible usages but are distinct senses that this curriculum must keep visibly separate.
Temple
Approved rendering: Temple
Transliteration: beit YHWH
Doctrine: Temple Worship and God’s Presence
Rejected alternatives: a temple (generic, lowercase comparative-religion usage applicable to any tradition’s religious building), shrine / sanctuary (too generic; loses the specific, exclusive, once-for-all-chosen sense)
Original: בֵּית יְהוָה
Category: Temple
NEW TERM. FF risk: contemporary English readers default to ‘temple’ as a generic label for any religious building of any tradition (Greek temple, Hindu temple, Buddhist temple), stripping the specific, exclusive, covenantal sense of THIS house as the one place YHWH himself chose (7:12,16). Must never stand alone on first substantive use per document without being anchored as ‘the Temple, the one place God himself chose for his name to dwell.’ Comparative theology note: the Jewish Temple hope (Beit HaMikdash) is unsuperseded and living, not closed ancient history; the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif site carries acute contemporary political sensitivity — avoid any framing that reads as dismissive of ongoing Jewish theological hope or that wades into live geopolitical territory.
Chosen
Approved rendering: chosen
Transliteration: bachar
Doctrine: Divine Election of Place and People
Rejected alternatives: you are chosen (contemporary affirmation-culture self-esteem idiom with no specific chooser or purpose), selected/handpicked (acceptable plain-language glosses, but insufficient alone without the sovereign-purpose dimension)
Original: בָּחַר
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM. FF + PS risk: God’s free, sovereign designation of the Temple site (7:12,16) and, by extension, Israel, risks being flattened into either the contemporary affirmation-culture idiom ‘you are chosen’ (generic self-esteem language) or contemporary geopolitical rhetoric about the modern state of Israel. Directly related to the baseline’s Critical ‘election’ entry; must not be softened into either direction. Comparative theology note: post-Vatican II Catholic and most mainline Protestant/Orthodox teaching now affirms continuity with, not replacement of, God’s election of Israel — this curriculum should not imply supersession.
Humble Themselves
Approved rendering: humble themselves
Transliteration: kana
Doctrine: Conditional Blessing and National Repentance
Rejected alternatives: humble brag (an ironic contemporary idiom that undercuts genuine humility), low self-esteem / self-deprecation (a psychological-deficit framing quite different from the text’s posture of submission before God)
Original: כָּנַע
Category: Repentance
NEW TERM, core term of 7:14, also reused at 12:6-7,12 (Rehoboam) and 33:12,19,23 (Manasseh, the paradigm individual case). FF/cultural-erosion risk: contemporary self-esteem culture treats humility with suspicion, the ironic idiom ‘humble brag’ undercuts it, and motivational/political rhetoric often celebrates confidence and self-assertion over self-abasement. Structurally comparable to the baseline’s treatment of ‘obedience’ — must be actively distinguished from either false modesty or a self-esteem deficit.
Called By My Name
Approved rendering: called by my name
Transliteration: niqra shemi aleihem
Doctrine: Conditional Blessing and National Repentance
Rejected alternatives: people who are called Christians (a casual-labeling gloss that loses the covenant-ownership sense entirely)
Original: נִקְרָא־שְׁמִי עֲלֵיהֶם
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM, 7:14. Literally ‘my name is called over them’ — a covenant-ownership formula identifying God’s people as bearing his own name and identity, tied to the Temple ‘where my name will be honored’ (v.16). OB risk: the idiom is archaic and easily under-glossed as mere labeling; must be actively unpacked as a covenant-ownership formula, not a casual name-tag.
Turn Shuv
Approved rendering: turn
Transliteration: shuv
Doctrine: Conditional Blessing and National Repentance
Rejected alternatives: personal growth / self-improvement (a therapeutic reframing that divorces the concept from accountability to God), repent (archaic revivalist-preacher coding for some readers — acceptable as a doctrine label but should not fully replace the concrete verb ‘turn’ each occurrence)
Original: שׁוּב
Category: Repentance
NEW TERM, the single root behind both repentance (turning toward God, 7:14) and apostasy (turning away, 7:19) in this passage — a deliberate structural mirroring worth stating explicitly. FF/cultural-erosion risk runs in two directions at once: sounding archaic/fire-and-brimstone on one side, or being reframed as generic self-improvement divorced from accountability to God on the other. Both must be guarded against.
Heal Their Land
Approved rendering: heal their land
Transliteration: rapha et artsam
Doctrine: Conditional Blessing and National Repentance
Rejected alternatives: the country will do better (a generic paraphrase that loses the territorial-covenant theology entirely), personal healing / a healing journey (the dominant contemporary individual medical/psychological sense)
Original: רָפָא אֶת־אַרְצָם
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM, the climactic clause of 7:14, ranked among the highest-risk ambiguities in the whole curriculum. FF risk: contemporary English ‘healing’ is overwhelmingly individual and medical/psychological (‘healing journey,’ ‘healing from trauma’); the corporate, territorial, agricultural sense (a nation’s land restored to fruitfulness, reversing the drought/locust/plague curse of v.13) is largely absent from ordinary usage and must be actively taught with a standing gloss every occurrence, not assumed.
Establish The Throne
Approved rendering: establish your throne
Transliteration: haqimoti kisse mamlakhtekha
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant and Dynastic Promise
Rejected alternatives: confirm your kingdom (an acceptable partial gloss, but should not replace the specific royal-dynasty ‘throne’ imagery)
Original: הֲקִימוֹתִי כִּסֵּא מַמְלַכְתְּךָ
Category: Kingship
NEW TERM, 7:18. The Davidic covenant’s dynastic promise (2 Samuel 7:12-16) reaffirmed and, in this specific instance, conditioned on Solomon’s own obedience. OB risk: unless the underlying Davidic covenant is actively supplied, contemporary readers will not register the weight of a specific royal-dynasty promise being both reaffirmed and conditioned — flag for explicit theological unpacking every occurrence, not generic promise language.
Abandoned The Lord
Approved rendering: abandoned the LORD
Transliteration: azvu et YHWH
Doctrine: Abandoning the LORD as National Causation
Rejected alternatives: they had bad luck / it was a geopolitical inevitability (secular-causation substitutes that erase the Chronicler’s own explicit theological claim)
Original: עָזְבוּ אֶת־יְהוָה
Category: Idolatry
NEW TERM. The Chronicler’s standard covenant-lawsuit formula (7:22; 12:1; 24:18; 28:6; 36:14-16): the root cause of every judgment narrated is always covenant abandonment, never mere bad luck or geopolitics. Contemporary readers, accustomed to purely political/economic/military causation, and rightly wary of glib modern ‘this disaster is God’s punishment’ claims, may resist or flatten this. State the Chronicler’s own interpretive frame plainly as the book’s consistent claim while handling pastoral application with care — a historical covenant-community claim about Israel/Judah specifically, not a template for reading every contemporary national tragedy. Jewish liturgical tradition (‘because of our sins we were exiled from our land’) affirms almost precisely the same causal claim.
Kingdom
Approved rendering: kingdom
Transliteration: mamlakah
Doctrine: Kingdom of Judah/Israel vs. Kingdom of God
Rejected alternatives: the kingdom of God (must not be used interchangeably — see the baseline ‘kingdom_of_god’ entry above, a distinct theological category)
Original: מַמְלָכָה
Category: Kingship
NEW TERM, ch. 10 onward. The actual, historical, political dominion of Judah (and, before the split, of a united Israel). Distinct from, but easily conflated with, the baseline’s ‘kingdom_of_god’ entry (God’s sovereign spiritual reign). Readers must keep the political-historical kingdom of Judah/Israel separate from both the New Testament’s kingdom of God and contemporary geopolitics around the modern state of Israel (PS risk).
Fear Of The Lord
Approved rendering: fear of the LORD
Transliteration: yirat YHWH
Doctrine: Fear of the LORD
Rejected alternatives: respect for God / reverence for God (acceptable supplementary glosses, but should not fully replace the traditional idiom, which recurs across the wider English Bible tradition)
Original: יִרְאַת יְהוָה
Category: Faith
NEW TERM, 19:7,9. Reverent awe and submission before God, the foundational disposition underlying just governance. FF risk: contemporary English ‘fear’ is dominated by dread/anxiety, and modern leadership/parenting culture generally treats ‘ruling by fear’ as negative; the reverent-awe sense needs active, explicit distinguishing, structurally parallel to the baseline’s caution about ‘obedience’ being misread as servility. Comparative theology note: Jewish yirat Shamayim and Islamic taqwa are close, actively living structural parallels.
Fasting
Approved rendering: fasting
Transliteration: tsom
Doctrine: Prayer and National Fasting
Rejected alternatives: intermittent fasting (the dominant contemporary health/diet-culture sense, a self-directed physical-optimization practice)
Original: צוֹם
Category: Repentance
NEW TERM, ch. 20. Corporate, covenantal abstention from food as an act of national repentance and dependence on God, paired with prayer and public assembly. FF risk on the order of the baseline’s ‘grace period’ caution: contemporary English ‘fasting’ is now dominantly associated with health/diet culture; must be explicitly clarified wherever national fasting appears. Comparative theology note: Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, and Islamic traditions all maintain robust living communal-fasting practices offering genuine points of comparative contact.
Sin Offering
Approved rendering: sin offering
Transliteration: chattat
Doctrine: Temple Purification and Sacrificial Worship
Rejected alternatives: a symbolic gesture (a flattening that removes the substitutionary, atoning dimension entirely)
Original: חַטָּאת
Category: Worship
NEW TERM, ch. 29. Sin/sin-offering — the same word covers both the guilt itself and the sacrificial offering that atones for it, central to restored worship under Hezekiah. FF risk: contemporary secular ‘sacrifice’ has drifted toward generic self-denial for a goal, losing the substitutionary, atoning, blood-sacrifice sense entirely. Parallels the baseline’s MANDATORY escalation rule for atonement/propitiation language (Romans 3:25) and must receive the same theologian-review-level care every occurrence.
Book Of The Law
Approved rendering: Book of the Law
Transliteration: sepher hattorah
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture (Old Testament)
Rejected alternatives: an ancient manuscript / a religious text (secular-academic framing that treats the scroll as a mere historical artifact rather than God’s own authoritative word)
Original: סֵפֶר הַתּוֹרָה
Category: Scripture
NEW TERM, ch. 34. The physical scroll of God’s written covenant law, rediscovered during Temple repair and triggering Josiah’s reform. Directly extends the baseline’s ‘inspiration_of_scripture’ High-risk concern into an Old Testament narrative setting: contemporary secular and academic culture widely treats ancient religious texts as purely human historical artifacts. State this curriculum’s own affirmation of the text’s divine authority and reforming power plainly, engaging the tension directly rather than assuming it is self-evident to a contemporary reader.
Lord Stirred The Spirit
Approved rendering: the LORD stirred the spirit
Transliteration: he’ir YHWH et ruach
Doctrine: Providence over Pagan Rulers
Rejected alternatives: Cyrus was filled with the Holy Spirit (a doctrinally serious misreading that conflates Old Testament providence over a pagan ruler’s will with New Testament Trinitarian indwelling — must be actively rejected, not merely avoided by omission)
Original: הֵעִיר יְהוָה אֶת־רוּחַ
Category: Providence
NEW TERM, 36:22. God’s sovereign, providential stirring of a pagan king’s own will/motivation, NOT a personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit. MANDATORY doctrinal-conflation warning: must be explicitly distinguished from the baseline’s ‘holy_spirit’ entry every occurrence this verse is discussed, to avoid importing Christian pneumatology into a different Old Testament providence category. Comparative theology note: Jewish tradition (cf. Isaiah 45:1’s ‘anointed’ language for Cyrus) and Christian tradition both affirm God’s providential use of Cyrus specifically — an area of strong interfaith agreement even while the pneumatological precision must be maintained.
Cherubim
Approved rendering: cherubim
Transliteration: kerubim
Doctrine: Temple Worship and God’s Presence
Rejected alternatives: cherubs / cherubic babies (the thoroughly domesticated contemporary greeting-card/Valentine’s-Day sense — a cute, chubby infant-angel figure, nearly the opposite of the biblical guardian creature), angels (too generic; imports unrelated New Testament angelology and loses the specific composite guardian-creature imagery)
Original: כְּרוּבִים
Category: Temple
NEW TERM, ch. 3, placed in the Most Holy Place. Powerful, composite guardian creatures associated with God’s throne and presence (cf. Genesis 3:24; Ezekiel 1, 10), visually reinforcing the holiness and inaccessibility of God’s presence apart from mediated access. FF risk: contemporary popular culture has thoroughly domesticated ‘cherub’ into a cute infant-angel figure — nearly the opposite of the awesome, fearsome biblical guardian creature. This drift must be actively corrected on first use.
Medium Risk Terms
Holy
Approved rendering: holy
Transliteration: holy
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: holier-than-thou (negative idiom for sanctimonious superiority), holy cow / holy moly (mere exclamations, entirely secularized)
Original: קָדַשׁ / קֹדֶשׁ
Category: Sanctification
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. 2 Chronicles extends this term to the Temple’s own consecration (7:16, ‘set apart to be holy’) and to the graded-holiness architecture of the sanctuary (ch. 3, Most Holy Place) and priestly consecration (ch. 29). This curriculum’s registry treats these Temple-specific occurrences at the same Medium tier as baseline, but flags that the graded-holiness architecture itself (courts vs. Holy Place vs. Most Holy Place) has no ready contemporary analogue and needs active pedagogical unpacking, not just the baseline’s negative-idiom correction.
Peace
Approved rendering: peace
Transliteration: peace
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: world peace / inner peace (the dominant secular senses: political non-conflict or psychological calm)
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. 2 Chronicles extends ‘peace’ to a specifically corporate, national, territorial dimension (Asa’s reign, ch. 14: ‘the land had rest,’ closely tied to 7:14’s ‘heal their land’). The baseline’s caution against ‘inner peace’/wellness-culture individualization applies with added force here, since the text’s own referent is an entire nation’s security, not one person’s inner calm.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: kingdom of God
Transliteration: kingdom of God
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
Rejected alternatives: a fantasy kingdom (contemporary media associations from fantasy fiction, film, and games — Tolkien-esque realms, ‘Game of Thrones’-style politics)
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. 2 Chronicles narrates the actual, historical, political kingdom of Judah/Israel (chs. 10-36) under the new term ‘kingdom’ (mamlakah) below, which this curriculum’s registry rates High risk specifically because of the conflation danger with THIS baseline term. This entry must never silently stand in for the new term ‘kingdom’ or vice versa; the political-historical Davidic kingdom and God’s sovereign spiritual reign are related but distinct categories.
Law
Approved rendering: law
Transliteration: law
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Original: תּוֹרָה
Category: Law
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly as recorded in translation_memory.json (note: assets/bible_term_registry.json for this curriculum records this term at High risk in its own registry; both figures are preserved here without contradiction — the baseline TM entry is reused verbatim per the hard rule, while this curriculum’s own registries independently document the elevated stakes of the Torah/Book-of-the-Law material in chs. 17 and 34). 2 Chronicles gives ‘law’ both a highly positive case (Levites proactively teaching the Law throughout Judah, ch. 17) and its climactic discovery narrative (Book of the Law found, ch. 34) — guard against a simplistic ‘legalism is always bad’ flattening of the Chronicler’s own positive view of Torah instruction, per the baseline’s existing hyper-grace caution.
Messiah
Approved rendering: Messiah
Transliteration: Messiah
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Rejected alternatives: a messiah complex (a pop-psychology pejorative term for grandiose self-importance)
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. Directly relevant to the Davidic covenant material in 2 Chronicles 7:17-18: the dynastic promise reaffirmed to Solomon is the Old Testament root of later messianic expectation. Comparative-theology note (see 04_comparative_theology.md): classical Jewish tradition reads this promise as still awaiting fulfillment, a genuine and significant divergence from the Christian typological-fulfillment reading this curriculum presents as its own interpretive claim, not as settled consensus.
Prophet
Approved rendering: prophet
Transliteration: prophet
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: a tech prophet / prophet of doom (secular usage for a confident forecaster or a pessimistic commentator)
Original: נָבִיא
Category: Prophecy
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. 2 Chronicles supplies an unusually rich cast of named prophetic figures (Azariah ch. 15, Hanani ch. 16, Micaiah ch. 18, Huldah ch. 34, the mocked prophets of ch. 36) illustrating both true prophecy and its rejection. See also the new term ‘seer’ below, a near-synonym in Chronicles’ court-history material.
Prophecy
Approved rendering: prophecy
Transliteration: prophecy
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Rejected alternatives: a self-fulfilling prophecy (a common secular psychological/sociological idiom unrelated to divine revelation)
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. 2 Chronicles 36:22 explicitly ties the decree of Cyrus to ‘the word of the LORD spoken through Jeremiah’ being fulfilled — one of the clearest predictive-prophecy-and-fulfillment structures in the whole Old Testament, and the book’s climactic resolution of the warning first given in 7:19-22.
Israel
Approved rendering: Israel
Transliteration: Israel
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Original: יִשְׂרָאֵל
Category: Covenant
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. 2 Chronicles uses ‘Israel’ with a shifting reference across the book: the united kingdom under David/Solomon (chs. 1-9), the northern rival kingdom after the split (chs. 10+), and the wider remnant Hezekiah invites to Passover (ch. 30). The baseline’s live-political-sensitivity note (the modern nation-state of Israel) applies with added force given this book’s sustained land-and-nation theology; the historical narrowing/widening of reference must be actively supplied, not assumed.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: Holy Spirit
Transliteration: Holy Spirit
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: good vibes / positive energy (vague contemporary spiritual substitutes for a specific, personal, divine Person)
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. This entry’s primary function in the 2 Chronicles curriculum is NEGATIVE and CONTRASTIVE: 36:22’s ‘the LORD stirred the spirit of Cyrus’ (see new entry ‘lord_stirred_the_spirit’) describes God’s providential influence on a pagan king’s own human motivation and will, NOT the personal, indwelling, Trinitarian Holy Spirit this baseline entry names. Every occasion this curriculum discusses 36:22 must explicitly invoke and then set aside this entry to prevent doctrinal conflation.
Seed Of David
Approved rendering: seed of David
Transliteration: seed of David
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: descendant of David (an acceptable modern-register gloss)
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. 2 Chronicles 7:18’s ‘one of your descendants will always rule over Israel’ is the direct Old Testament outworking of this exact promise, here reaffirmed to Solomon and explicitly conditioned on his own covenant obedience — a tension (permanently secured dynasty vs. conditioned individual reign) worth stating explicitly alongside the retained traditional phrase, per this curriculum’s own linguistic-gap analysis.
Sacrifice Offering
Approved rendering: sacrifice
Transliteration: zebach
Doctrine: Sacrificial Worship and Offerings
Rejected alternatives: she sacrificed her weekend (the diluted secular sense: generic self-denial for a goal, with no cultic or atoning content)
Original: זֶבַח
Category: Worship
NEW TERM. FF risk: secular ‘sacrifice’ has drifted toward generic self-denial for a goal, losing the atoning, cultic, blood-offering sense entirely. General references throughout the book (1:6; 7:1,4-7; 8:12-13) carry this baseline Medium risk; see the higher-stakes ‘sin_offering’ entry below for the concentrated ch. 29 atonement context, which this curriculum treats at High risk with mandatory theologian-level care.
Seek My Face
Approved rendering: seek my face
Transliteration: biqshu panai
Doctrine: Conditional Blessing and National Repentance
Rejected alternatives: seek God’s blessing / seek his favor (partial glosses that lose the royal-court-audience idiom’s relational intensity)
Original: בִּקְשׁוּ פָנַי
Category: Repentance
NEW TERM, part of the 7:14 fourfold-response cluster. An idiom for seeking audience with, or the favor of, a superior — royal-court language transferred to God, an intensified, relational form of seeking beyond mere petition. FF risk: contemporary ‘spiritual seeker’ language implies an open-ended, self-directed search rather than a specific, covenantal turning toward the one true God who has already revealed himself — the same drift the baseline flags for ‘faith’ losing its specific object.
Forgive Salach
Approved rendering: forgive
Transliteration: salach
Doctrine: Conditional Blessing and National Repentance
Rejected alternatives: forgive yourself (a therapeutic-culture individualizing substitute quite different from corporate, God-directed national forgiveness)
Original: סָלַח
Category: Repentance
NEW TERM, 7:14. Corporate, national forgiveness of the covenant guilt that triggered the covenant curse — reuses the baseline ‘sin’ entry as its object. Contemporary therapeutic culture’s ‘forgive yourself’ language individualizes and internalizes forgiveness in a way that can obscure the corporate, God-directed forgiveness of an entire nation in view here.
Walk Before Me
Approved rendering: walk before me
Transliteration: halak lephanai
Doctrine: Faithful and Unfaithful Kings
Rejected alternatives: walk with God (an acceptable near-synonym drawn from Genesis 5:24/6:9, though ‘walk before’ specifically carries a royal-court-audience nuance worth preserving)
Original: הָלַךְ לְפָנַי
Category: Kingship
NEW TERM, 7:17, the Chronicler’s recurring evaluative formula for kings. A Hebrew idiom for a whole-life pattern of conduct lived consciously in God’s presence. OB risk: ‘walking with/before God’ survives reasonably well in churched English but is essentially opaque to unchurched readers as a dead metaphor; needs a brief explanatory gloss on first use (‘a whole-life pattern of conduct lived consciously before God,’ not a literal walk).
Commands And Decrees
Approved rendering: commands and decrees
Transliteration: chuqqim u-mishpatim
Doctrine: Faithful and Unfaithful Kings
Rejected alternatives: rules and regulations (too bureaucratic/flat a register for covenant law)
Original: חֻקִּים וּמִשְׁפָּטִים
Category: Law
NEW TERM, 7:17,19. Covenant law in comprehensive form — fixed statutes and case-law-like judgments. Reuses the baseline ‘law’ entry’s caution about a purely secular civil/criminal-law frame and about a caricatured ‘legalism is always bad’ hyper-grace reading; covenant obedience here is defined concretely by content, not vague general piety.
Uproot
Approved rendering: uproot
Transliteration: nathash
Doctrine: The Exile as Covenant Consequence
Rejected alternatives: exile them (acceptable as a forward pointer to the historical fulfillment, but should not replace the vivid agricultural metaphor itself)
Original: נָתַשׁ
Category: Exile
NEW TERM, 7:20, fulfilled in the Babylonian exile (ch. 36). OB risk (comparatively stable agricultural metaphor); the deliberate connection between this warning and its literal historical fulfillment in ch. 36 should be made explicit rather than left as poetic threat alone.
High Place
Approved rendering: high place
Transliteration: bamah
Doctrine: Worship Site Centralization (High Places)
Rejected alternatives: shrine (too generic; loses the specific elevated-outdoor-site and shifting-legality nuance)
Original: בָּמָה
Category: Worship
NEW TERM, recurring throughout (1:3,13; 14:3,5; 15:17; 17:6; 20:33; 33:3,15,17; 34:3-7). An elevated cultic worship site: legitimate before the Temple’s completion, condemned as a rival site afterward. OB risk: opaque to contemporary readers without a gloss; its SHIFTING legal status across the book needs active explanation at each occurrence rather than one fixed definition.
Wisdom
Approved rendering: wisdom
Transliteration: chokmah
Doctrine: Wisdom for Godly Leadership
Rejected alternatives: life hacks / crowd wisdom (generic, self-generated secular substitutes)
Original: חָכְמָה
Category: Kingship
NEW TERM, 1:7-12; 9:1-8,22-23. God-given skill for righteous rule, requested by and granted to Solomon. FF risk: contemporary secular ‘wisdom’ (wisdom of crowds, life-hack content, workplace wisdom literature) is generic and self-generated; the specific sense of wisdom as a divine gift for covenant leadership needs restating.
Wrath Of The Lord
Approved rendering: wrath
Transliteration: qetseph
Doctrine: Abandoning the LORD as National Causation
Rejected alternatives: God’s anger issues (a flippant pop-psychology framing that trivializes covenant-judicial anger)
Original: קֶצֶף
Category: God
NEW TERM, 12:7; 36:16. Covenant-judicial anger provoked by unfaithfulness, distinct from arbitrary or capricious divine temper. Contemporary readers, shaped by therapeutic caution around ‘anger’ as generally unhealthy, may resist attributing righteous anger to God; distinguish this judicial, relational category from the pop-psychology category of ‘anger issues.‘
Seek The Lord
Approved rendering: seek the LORD
Transliteration: darash
Doctrine: Seeking the LORD
Rejected alternatives: be a spiritual seeker (open-ended, self-directed contemporary spiritual-search language with no fixed object)
Original: דָּרַשׁ
Category: Faith
NEW TERM, the Chronicler’s signature evaluative marker of faithful kings (Asa 14:4,7; Jehoshaphat 17:4, 20:3-4; Hezekiah 31:21). FF risk: contemporary ‘seeking’ language implies an open-ended, self-directed search; the Chronicler’s specific, covenantal sense (actively consulting and depending on the one true God, often through his prophets or through obedience to his law) must be distinguished from generic spiritual searching.
Rest
Approved rendering: rest
Transliteration: nuach
Doctrine: National Rest and Peace
Rejected alternatives: inner peace / peace of mind (the dominant contemporary individual-psychological sense)
Original: נוּח
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM, 14:1,5-7. National peace and security given by God as a covenant blessing, closely tied to ‘heal their land’ (7:14). Overlaps with the baseline ‘peace’ entry’s wellness-culture caution; the corporate-national dimension needs the same active correction given to ‘heal their land.‘
Oath
Approved rendering: oath
Transliteration: shevuah
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal Ceremonies
Original: שְׁבוּעָה
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM, 15:12-15. A formal, binding covenant-renewal commitment sealing the nation’s devotion to God. ‘Oath’ survives reasonably well in legal/courtroom contexts in contemporary English, a modest partial asset for conveying formality and binding weight, though the specifically covenantal (not merely legal-procedural) sense of these repeated national ceremonies should still be noted explicitly (also occurs at 23:1-3,16; 29:10; 34:29-32).
Baal
Approved rendering: Baal
Transliteration: Ba’al
Doctrine: Exclusive Worship of the LORD
Rejected alternatives: a false god (too generic an abstraction; loses the historically concrete, named rival deity)
Original: בַּעַל
Category: Idolatry
NEW TERM, chs. 22-23, 28, 33. ‘Lord, master’ — the proper name of the primary Canaanite storm-god served as a rival to YHWH. OB risk: largely unknown to contemporary readers outside biblical contexts; needs brief identification as a named, historically real, rival ancient Near Eastern deity, not a generic abstraction, to preserve the concreteness of the exclusivity claim in 7:19.
Cleanse
Approved rendering: cleanse
Transliteration: taher
Doctrine: Temple Purification and Sacrificial Worship
Rejected alternatives: a detox cleanse (the dominant contemporary hygiene/wellness-consumer sense)
Original: טָהַר
Category: Worship
NEW TERM, ch. 29. Ritual and moral purification of the Temple and its priests after Ahaz’s defilement (ch. 28), the necessary precondition for restored covenant worship. FF risk: contemporary English ‘clean/cleanse’ is dominated by hygiene and consumer/wellness usage (detox cleanses, cleaning products); the ritual-relational, covenantal sense needs active distinguishing.
Passover
Approved rendering: Passover
Transliteration: pesach
Doctrine: Passover and Covenant Renewal
Rejected alternatives: the Exodus-remembrance festival (an unnecessary paraphrase — ‘Passover’ is already the universally recognized term and should be retained as-is)
Original: פֶּסַח
Category: Worship
NEW TERM, chs. 30 (Hezekiah), 35 (Josiah). The Exodus-deliverance festival, celebrated as a unifying act of national covenant renewal across a divided nation. Genuine positive asset: contemporary broader culture knows Passover as a living, present-day Jewish festival, not merely ancient history — but requires care not to present it as a purely superseded ‘Old Testament practice,’ consistent with the baseline’s caution against supersessionist framing.
Remnant
Approved rendering: remnant
Transliteration: she’erith
Doctrine: Remnant and Covenant Continuity
Rejected alternatives: survivors / leftovers (flatter synonyms that lose the accumulated covenant-hope theological freight the traditional term carries)
Original: שְׁאֵרִית
Category: Restoration
NEW TERM, 30:6-9. Those who survived judgment and national division, still addressable and includable in covenant renewal. OB risk: rare and church-flavored in ordinary contemporary speech; needs a brief gloss (‘those who survived and remain includable in covenant renewal’) and must be distinguished from generic ‘a small leftover group’ to retain its covenant-hope weight, directly relevant to Hope of Restoration.
Exile Captivity
Approved rendering: exile
Transliteration: galuth / shebi
Doctrine: The Exile as Covenant Consequence
Rejected alternatives: a self-imposed exile / a tax exile (loosened contemporary metaphorical/voluntary senses that obscure the forced, judicial character of the biblical exile)
Original: גָּלוּת / שְׁבִי
Category: Exile
NEW TERM, ch. 36. Forced deportation to Babylon as covenant judgment, the literal historical fulfillment of ‘uproot…from this land’ (7:20). State plainly that this is involuntary judgment, not a lifestyle choice or metaphor. Comparative theology note: Jewish tradition’s galut is a foundational, continuously theologically processed historical category, not a closed ancient episode — this curriculum should not imply the exile theme is merely historical scenery.
Lands Sabbath Rest
Approved rendering: the land enjoyed its sabbath rest
Transliteration: shabbat (applied to the land)
Doctrine: The Sabbath Rest of the Land
Rejected alternatives: a quaint agricultural footnote (a dismissive framing that misses the book’s own stated theological point)
Original: שַׁבָּת (applied to the land)
Category: Exile
NEW TERM, 36:21. The exile fulfills a specific covenant land-sabbath law (cf. Leviticus 25-26): the land itself finally receives its due rest. OB risk: essentially no contemporary cultural reference point for a sabbatical land-rest law (letting fields lie fallow on a set cycle); must be actively explained as background. State explicitly that even judgment here operates within God’s own prior covenant framework, not arbitrarily.
Decree Of Cyrus
Approved rendering: decree of Cyrus
Transliteration: n/a (royal proclamation; no single fixed Hebrew technical term)
Doctrine: Hope of Restoration
Rejected alternatives: a symbolic happy ending (a literary-device framing that hedges the historicity the text and extra-biblical evidence both affirm)
Original: (royal proclamation; no single fixed Hebrew technical term)
Category: Restoration
NEW TERM, 36:22-23. A historically documented act of Persian imperial policy (corroborated by the Cyrus Cylinder) presented by the Chronicler as direct fulfillment of ‘the word of the LORD spoken through Jeremiah.’ Must be affirmed as historical fact, consistent with the baseline’s insistence on stating historical claims (e.g., the resurrection) plainly rather than hedging them as myth or symbol. This ending, read alongside 7:14’s promise, gives Hope of Restoration its clearest Old Testament narrative resolution.
Low Risk Terms
David
Approved rendering: David
Transliteration: David
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Original: דָּוִד
Category: Covenant
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering and risk tier reused exactly. In 2 Chronicles, David functions throughout as the positive covenant standard against which every subsequent king of Judah is measured (‘walked in the ways of David his father,’ 7:17 and recurring). The baseline’s note that most readers’ independent knowledge of David is limited to the David-and-Goliath narrative applies with added force: the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7, presupposed in 7:18, must be actively supplied for the comparison’s weight to register.
Object Of Mockery Byword
Approved rendering: an object of mockery and ridicule
Transliteration: le-mashal ve-lishninah
Doctrine: The Exile as Covenant Consequence
Rejected alternatives: a byword (retained parenthetically for readers of other English Bible translations, but not used as the primary modernized rendering)
Original: לְמָשָׁל וְלִשְׁנִינָה
Category: Exile
NEW TERM, 7:20. ‘For a proverb and a byword’ — Israel’s downfall becoming proverbial evidence of divine judgment to surrounding nations, not a private misfortune. OB risk only: ‘byword’ is nearly extinct in ordinary contemporary speech and needs a brief gloss, but carries no strong competing modern meaning, so the risk is unfamiliarity rather than active misreading.
Seer
Approved rendering: seer
Transliteration: chozeh / ro’eh
Doctrine: Prophetic Word and Warning
Rejected alternatives: a fortune-teller (a fantasy-fiction/occult association that must be explicitly rejected)
Original: חֹזֶה / רֹאֶה
Category: Prophecy
NEW TERM, 16:7,10; 19:2; 29:25. ‘One who sees’ — a prophetic figure, near-synonym of ‘prophet,’ especially in Chronicles’ court-history material. OB risk: archaic in ordinary contemporary speech, surviving mainly in fantasy fiction as a fortune-teller archetype — a fictional-genre association similar to the baseline’s caution about ‘Lord.’ Needs a brief gloss distinguishing this from fortune-telling and aligning it with the baseline ‘prophet’ entry.
Lament
Approved rendering: lament
Transliteration: qinah
Doctrine: National Mourning and Lament
Original: קִינָה
Category: Worship
NEW TERM, ch. 35. A funeral dirge/lament; national grief over Josiah’s untimely death, distinguished from the mocking ‘appalled’ response to judgment in 7:21. Comparatively low risk: a stable, well-understood concept in contemporary English (funeral lament, elegy); minor risk only of under-distinguishing righteous grief from judgment-provoked mockery without explicit contrast.
Referenced passages