What Does 1 Kings 10:23 Mean?
So King Solomon grew greater than all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom.
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
So king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches and for wisdom.THE KEY
The verse’s wisdom is practical skill, so Solomon’s greatness includes what he can discern and do, not only what he owns.
THE MEANING
You encounter two measures of abundance here: what you possess and the wisdom to perceive and order life. The verse keeps them side by side, so discernment is not reduced to wealth, and wealth does not stand in for discernment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse loosens the assumption that riches alone describe greatness; it names wisdom alongside them as a distinct abundance.
THE ROOT
חָכְמָה
ḥokmāh
GROWS FROM
חכם
ḥ-k-m
To be wise or skillful.
The same root gives both wisdom and the wise person, and it is also used for skill in making. The verse’s wisdom is lived capacity, not information alone; it stands beside riches as another form of abundance.
ALSO GROWS
ḥākām: A wise or skilled person.
חָכָם
The root names a person with practiced capacity, making Solomon’s wisdom more than knowledge stored in the mind.
ḥokmāh: Wisdom or practical skill.
חָכְמָה
This is the word used for Solomon’s wisdom, a discernment that can be put into practice.
עֹשֶׁר
ʿōsher
GROWS FROM
עשר
ʿ-š-r
To be or become wealthy.
“riches” in this verse is ʿōsher. The word-family names both wealth and the condition of being wealthy. Here, material abundance is stated plainly, but it does not absorb the separate abundance of wisdom.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāshīr: A wealthy person or one in a wealthy condition.
עָשִׁיר
This form describes the state associated with riches, linking what is possessed with a condition of abundance.
heʿĕshîr: To cause someone to become wealthy.
הֶעֱשִׁיר
This verbal form shows the same root describing wealth as a condition someone can be brought into.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents wisdom as practical abundance, holding it beside material wealth and sometimes naming it among life’s treasures.
Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand wealth and weight.Wisdom is good with an inheritance; and there is a remainder for life to those who see the sun.In whom are hidden all the storehouses of wisdom and knowledge.THE THREAD
And I have filled him with the breath of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of work.The same Hebrew word translated “wisdom” here appears in Exodus as a capacity for workmanship. That makes its pairing with riches concrete: wisdom is lived skill alongside material abundance.
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