What Does 1 Kings 1:28 Mean?
Then King David answered and said, Call Bathsheba to me. And she came before the face of the king, and stood before him.
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
Then king David answered and said, Call me Bath-sheba. And she came into the king’s presence, and stood before the king.THE KEY
Bathsheba’s name carries an oath-echo, and the next thing David does is swear.
THE MEANING
The verse brings Bathsheba into David’s direct view: he summons her, and she stands before him herself. Hebrew repeats “before the king,” holding the encounter face-to-face rather than leaving her claim at a distance. Her name’s שֶׁבַע (sheva, “seven”) shares its consonants with the oath-root David speaks in the next verse.
THE ROOT
בַּת־שֶׁבַע
bat-sheva
GROWS FROM
שבע
The root’s word family includes “seven” and the verb for swearing an oath.
“Bath-sheba” in this verse is bat-sheva. Bathsheba is “daughter of seven”; the same consonants also form the oath-verb. Her name stands at the threshold of David’s oath in the following verse.
ALSO GROWS
sheva: seven
שֶׁבַע
This is the second element of Bath-sheba’s name: literally, “daughter of seven.”
nishbaʿ: swore; took an oath
נִשְׁבַּע
The same consonants form the oath-verb David uses in his declaration one verse later.
לִפְנֵי
lifnei
GROWS FROM
פנה
Turn; face toward.
The Hebrew repeats lifnei ha-melekh, “before the king,” in both clauses. The repetition keeps Bathsheba visibly face-to-face with the king.
ALSO GROWS
panim: face; presence
פָּנִים
Lifnei places Bathsheba before the king’s face, giving “presence” a direct, embodied sense.
panah: turn; face toward
פָּנָה
The root’s sense of turning toward resonates with her movement from being summoned to standing before the king.
קִרְאוּ
qir’u
GROWS FROM
קרא
Call; summon; proclaim.
“Call Bathsheba to me” in this verse is qir’u. David’s call gathers Bathsheba into the scene and brings her before him. The same root can name a gathering called together, linking a summons with making someone present to hear.
ALSO GROWS
qara: call; summon
קָרָא
Here the call brings Bathsheba into direct view of the king.
miqra: convocation; public reading
מִקְרָא
A miqra is a gathering called together, extending the root’s sense of calling into shared presence.
THE PATTERN
An oath turns a spoken commitment into publicly recognized, binding speech.
Therefore he called that place the well of the swearing, Beersheba, because there the two of them swore.And Joshua made wholeness with them, and cut a covenant with them, to let them live; and the lifted ones of the assembly swore to them.For humankind swears by the greater, and an oath for steadying is for them the boundary of every word set against.THE THREAD
And the king swore, and said, As the LORD lives, who has ransomed my living soul out of every narrow place.Bathsheba’s name contains שֶׁבַע (sheva, “seven”), and the consonants שבע also form the oath-verb used here. David’s next line gives that name-echo a spoken form: he swears.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us