What Does 1 Chronicles 14:1 Mean?
Now Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, with timber of cedars, hewers, and carvers, to build him a house.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Now Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and timber of cedars, with masons and carpenters, to build him an house.THE KEY
This house begins with what another king releases: the timber and skilled hands that make building possible.
THE MEANING
David’s name carries the sense of “beloved,” and the verse places a house for him at the end of an act of sending. Timber and skilled labor arrive from another king; what becomes shelter takes shape through what is released and received. The dwelling comes through a relation of giving as well as the work of building.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that shelter can only come from what you produce yourself gives way here: a house can take shape through what someone else sends and the work that receives it.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁלַח
wayyishlaḥ
GROWS FROM
שלח
sh-l-ḥ
To send, send forth, or release.
English “sent” can sound like simple delivery, while this root also carries the sense of letting go. Here, what is released is concrete: timber and skilled hands arrive, and their sending makes a dwelling possible.
ALSO GROWS
shaluaḥ: Sent or dispatched.
שָׁלוּחַ
The sent one carries a purpose outward, as Hiram’s messengers and workers carry the means to build.
mishloach: Sending or dispatch.
מִשְׁלוֹחַ
This noun keeps the act of sending visible: the house begins with a dispatch of resources, before it exists as a finished structure.
לִבְנוֹת
libnot
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
To build or establish.
“build” in this verse is libnot. The verb names the work that turns arriving timber into a dwelling. The house is not simply delivered whole; it takes form as provision and skilled labor meet.
ALSO GROWS
binyan: Building or structure.
בִּנְיָן
This noun makes the result of the verb visible: the work of building becomes a structure.
banuy: Built.
בָּנוּי
This form describes what the sent materials and skilled hands can become.
דָּוִד
Dawid
GROWS FROM
דוד
d-w-d
Beloved; a beloved one.
David’s name carries the sense of “beloved,” so the house is built for someone whose name already holds that nature. The sending of provision moves toward the beloved one.
ALSO GROWS
dod: Beloved one or kinsman.
דּוֹד
This related word holds the beloved sense carried in David’s name.
dodim: Love or caresses.
דּוֹדִים
This plural form makes the root’s language of love explicit.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling takes shape when provision and skill arrive through others and become shared work.
And I have filled him with the breath of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of work.They gave silver also unto the cutters and the carvers, and food, and drink, and oil, unto them of Sidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa, according to the permission they had from Cyrus king of Persia.For we are fellow workers with God. You are God's field; you are God's building.THE THREAD
And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying, I have heard the words you sent to me, and I will do all your desire in the trees of cedar and in the trees of fir.“Sent” and “sentest” both carry the Hebrew root שלח (sh-l-ḥ), to send or release. Hiram’s sending of cedar to David echoes this later exchange with Solomon: in both, the materials for a house begin by being sent.
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