What Does 1 Chronicles 29:28 Mean?
And he died in good gray hair, full of days, riches, and weight. And Solomon his son reigned in his stead.
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 he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour: and Solomon his son reigned in his stead.THE KEY
David’s days are described as satisfied, and the life that follows bears a name rooted in wholeness.
THE MEANING
A life can reach its ending as a measure that has come to enough, while what it sets in motion continues. Here, David’s satisfaction and Solomon’s succession stand together: completion does not prevent continuation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that death makes a life’s fullness vanish: the line continues beyond David in the son who takes his place.
THE ROOT
שְׂבַע
sĕvaʿ
GROWS FROM
שׂבע
ś-b-ʿ
To be satisfied or sated; to have enough.
The Hebrew behind “full of days” speaks of being satisfied with days, not simply having accumulated many of them. Fullness here carries the sense of a measure that has come to enough.
ALSO GROWS
śāvēaʿ: Satisfied, sated.
שָׂבֵעַ
It makes the verse’s fullness a state of satisfaction, not just a count of years.
śōvaʿ: Satiety, satisfaction, plenty.
שֹׂבַע
This related noun shows how the root can describe the condition of having enough.
כָּבוֹד
kavod
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty.
The honor in this list carries the image of weight: what is honored has substance and consequence. The verse gathers not only days and riches, but a life with weight.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy, weighty.
כָּבֵד
It reveals the physical sense beneath the honor named in the verse.
kibbed: To honor, treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
This verbal branch makes honor an act of recognizing someone’s weight.
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shelomoh
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete.
Solomon’s name shares its root with שָׁלוֹם (shalom), meaning wholeness or well-being. The verse does not claim that his reign is flawless; it places the continuation of David’s line under a name that echoes wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
Its root links Solomon’s name to the idea of wholeness.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch echoes the verse’s movement from a satisfied life to what continues after it.
THE PATTERN
A life reaches its ending as a measure brought to fullness, while what it has set in motion continues beyond it.
Then Abraham breathed out, and died in good gray hair, an old man, full of days, and was gathered to his people.So Job died, being old and sated with days.For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, and was laid beside his fathers, and saw decay.THE THREAD
Behold, a son shall be born to you, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about, for his name shall be Solomon, wholeness, and I will give wholeness and stillness to Israel in his days.This verse ties Solomon’s name to peace, an English rendering of שָׁלוֹם (shalom), meaning wholeness. When Solomon appears as David’s successor, the name carries that same root into the continuation of the line.
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