What Does 1 Chronicles 15:3 Mean?
And David gathered all Israel together to Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the LORD to its place, which he had set firm for it.
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
And David gathered all Israel together to Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the LORD unto his place, which he had prepared for it.THE KEY
David, the beloved (דָּוִד, Dawid), gathers the whole people toward Yerushalayim (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, Yerushalayim, the twofold wholeness), carrying the ark into a place already made ready.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now as a movement within you: what is sacred is carried into a place prepared for it, while your scattered parts gather toward wholeness. The gathering belongs to the whole, not to one person alone.
THE ROOT
הֵכִין
hekin
GROWS FROM
כון
To be firm or established; in this form, to establish or prepare.
“set firm” in this verse is hekin. The ark’s destination belongs to a root of firmness and establishment: David makes the place ready before the gathering. The order matters, first a stable dwelling, then the movement of the ark.
ALSO GROWS
makon: An established place or dwelling
מָכוֹן
The prepared place is more than a location; it is a dwelling made ready to receive the ark.
nakhon: Firm, established, ready
נָכוֹן
This branch echoes the readiness already present before the people assemble.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
To be whole or complete.
The name carries the consonants of שׁלם (sh-l-m, to be whole) and ends in the paired -ayim form; here Jerusalem holds the image of twofold wholeness. The ark’s ascent is movement toward wholeness as well as toward a place.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, completeness, well-being
שָׁלוֹם
It reveals the quality carried in the destination’s name.
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
The root’s sense of completeness opens Jerusalem as a state of wholeness, not only a place on a map.
וַיַּקְהֵל
vayyaqhel
GROWS FROM
קהל
To assemble or gather as a congregation.
“gathered” in this verse is vayyaqhel. The verb gathers Israel as an assembly, not merely as a crowd. The ark’s movement is a shared act of the whole people, rather than a private possession.
ALSO GROWS
qahal: Assembly, congregation
קָהָל
The verb’s action becomes the gathered people themselves.
hiqhil: To assemble or gather a congregation
הִקְהִיל
This causative form makes the act of bringing the people together explicit.
THE PATTERN
God’s dwelling takes shape where a people are gathered into a place made ready for presence.
And let them make me a set-apart place, that I may pitch my tent among them.And it came to be, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one voice heard in praising and in extending the hands to the LORD; and when they lifted their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of song, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; his faithful love is for the ages. Then the house was filled with a cloud, the house of the LORD. And the priests could not stand to attend before the cloud, for the weight of the LORD had filled the house of God.In whom you also are built together into a place where God settles, through breath.THE THREAD
And David made him houses in the city of David, and set firm a place for the ark of God, and stretched out a tent for it.The previous verse shows how this destination becomes ready: David has already established a place and pitched a tent for the ark. The shared root כון (kun, establish or prepare) makes 15:3 the next movement in the sequence: first the prepared dwelling, then the assembly that carries the ark to it.
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