What Does 1 Chronicles 29:24 Mean?
And all the princes, and the mighty men, and all the sons likewise of king David gave their hand to Solomon the king.
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 all the princes, and the mighty men, and all the sons likewise of king David, submitted themselves unto Solomon the king.THE KEY
“Submitted” carries the image of power bending under authority, so the mighty men’s strength becomes visible in the very posture that yields it.
THE MEANING
You meet the same structure whenever people with rank, strength, or inheritance take a common posture toward authority. The princes, mighty men, and David’s sons are not described as powerless; they submit themselves to Solomon, holding strength and yielding together. Kingship becomes publicly acknowledged through that shared bend.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that yielding always means losing strength: the mighty men remain mighty even as they submit.
THE ROOT
וַיִּכָּנְעוּ
wayyikkānaʿû
GROWS FROM
כ־נ־ע
To be humbled or subdued; to be brought low beneath another’s authority.
“gave their hand” in this verse is wayyikkānaʿû. The Hebrew verb holds submission and humbling together: those with power lower themselves before Solomon. English can make submission sound like a mere change of rank, while the root shows a visible change of posture.
ALSO GROWS
kānaʿ: Be humbled or submit
כָּנַע
This is the root’s basic sense, linking the princes’ submission with the lowering of oneself.
hikhniʿa: Subdue or bring under
הִכְנִיעַ
This form shows the same root from the other side: one authority brings another under its rule.
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shelomoh
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ם
To be whole or complete; the root associated with shalom, wholeness.
Solomon’s name shares its root consonants with shalom, meaning wholeness. The gathered submission is directed toward a king whose name carries that resonance of wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being
שָׁלוֹם
This branch lets the name’s resonance open onto the idea of a whole and settled order.
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch carries the same root’s sense of completeness into the scene of a people gathered under one king.
THE PATTERN
Authority becomes visible when those with strength and rank bend into a shared acknowledgment.
Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king bent low, and they said, The LORD is aligned.If my people, upon whom my name is called, bend themselves low, and pray, and seek my face, and turn back from their harmful ways, then I will hear from the heavens, and I will release their falling short, and heal their land.That at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of things in heaven, and things on the earth, and things under the earth.THE THREAD
Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king bent low, and they said, The LORD is aligned.The same Hebrew root, כנע (kanaʿ), joins these scenes of rulers lowering themselves. Here princes and mighty men submit to Solomon; there, princes and a king humble themselves before the LORD, revealing the shared posture beneath both acts.
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