What Does 1 Chronicles 21:21 Mean?
And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out from the threshing floor, and bowed down to David with his face to the ground.
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 as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshingfloor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.THE KEY
At the threshing floor, the beloved king is recognized through a face lowered to the ground.
THE MEANING
The scene places the reader inside an encounter where recognition becomes visible: Ornan sees David, steps off the threshing floor, and lowers his face to the ground. Authority is met not as an idea but through a body taking a posture of regard.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ
vayishtachu
GROWS FROM
שחה
sh-ch-h
To bow down or prostrate oneself.
“bowed down” in this verse is vayishtachu. The Hebrew verb holds bodily lowering and reverence together. Ornan’s regard for David is not only inward; it takes the visible form of bowing.
ALSO GROWS
shachah: To bow down, prostrate oneself, or worship.
שחה
This root gathers physical lowering and reverence into one word-family, illuminating the posture Ornan takes before David.
hishtachavah: To bow oneself down or prostrate oneself.
הִשְׁתַּחֲוָה
This form expresses the self-lowering action also present in the verse’s וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ (vayishtachu), making the body’s response explicit.
דָּוִיד
David
GROWS FROM
דוד
d-w-d
Beloved; one who is loved.
The Hebrew name David (דָּוִיד, David) carries the sound and sense of דּוֹד (dod), “beloved.” The verse’s lowered face meets a king whose name itself carries the nature of the beloved.
ALSO GROWS
dod: Beloved one or kinsman.
דּוֹד
The shared consonants link David’s name with belovedness, giving the bow a relational depth alongside its deference.
dodim: Loves or beloved affections.
דּוֹדִים
This plural form appears in love poetry and extends the name’s root-family into expressed affection.
THE PATTERN
Recognition of a presence becomes visible as the body lowers itself.
And he lifted his eyes and saw, and look, three men stood beside him. When he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent opening, and bowed down to the earth.And all the children of Israel saw the fire come down, and the weight of the LORD upon the house, and they knelt, their face to the ground upon the pavement, and bowed down, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good, for his faithful love is for the ages.The twenty-four older ones fall down before the one who sits upon the throne, and bow down to the one who lives into the ages of the ages, and throw their crowns before the throne, saying,THE THREAD
And Abraham rose and bowed down to the people of the land, even to the sons of Heth.The Hebrew verb translated “bowed himself” here comes from שחה (shachah), the same root as Ornan’s bow. Abraham’s gesture toward other people shows that this root can express human deference as well as worship.
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