What Does 1 Kings 11:15 Mean?
It came to be, when David was in Edom, and Joab the captain of the host had gone up to bury the slain, after he had struck down every male in Edom.
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
For it came to pass, when David was in Edom, and Joab the captain of the host was gone up to bury the slain, after he had smitten every male in Edom;THE KEY
Edom means “red,” so the land’s name stands beside the burial of its slain and gathers color, ground, and death into one image.
THE MEANING
You are shown a place where mass killing has happened, and Joab’s ascent to bury the slain follows the striking down of every male. The name Edom carries the meaning “red,” holding the land, the bodies, and their burial in one frame.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that burial erases the killing is undone here: the burial follows the named slaughter, keeping the aftermath attached to the violence.
THE ROOT
אֱדוֹם
Edom
GROWS FROM
א־ד־ם
Red, ruddy
The root links Edom with אָדָמָה (adamah, ground or soil) and אָדָם (adam, human). The shorter דָּם (dam, blood) echoes the red sound and consonants, bringing the slain into the name’s resonance.
ALSO GROWS
adom: Red, ruddy
אָדֹם
This is the color carried in Edom’s name, now placed beside the buried dead.
adamah: Ground, soil
אֲדָמָה
The name’s root reaches toward the ground receiving the bodies.
adam: Human
אָדָם
The same consonant family links the land’s name to the human lives the verse says were struck down.
לִקְבֹּר
liqbor
GROWS FROM
קבר
Bury, place in a grave
“bury” in this verse is liqbor. The root gives both the act of burial and the grave itself. The verse’s burial is a physical aftermath of the slaughter, not a word that makes the dead disappear.
ALSO GROWS
qeber: Grave, tomb
קֶבֶר
The grave is the place contained within the act of burying.
qevurah: Burial
קְבוּרָה
This noun names the same act Joab carries out after the killing.
דָּוִד
Dawid
GROWS FROM
דוד
Beloved
David’s name carries the sense of the beloved. Here that name stands in the red land while the verse describes the burial of those killed there.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: Beloved one, lover
דּוֹד
This word shares the name’s sound and carries its sense of being beloved.
dōdîm: Love, caresses
דּוֹדִים
The related word carries the same language of love within the name’s root family.
THE PATTERN
Bloodshed leaves a witness that burial cannot erase.
And the LORD said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.For behold, the LORD comes out of his place to visit upon those who settle in the earth their crookedness. The earth will uncover her blood, and will no more cover her struck ones.and to Jesus, the one who stands between, of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks stronger than Abel.THE THREAD
And Esau said to Jacob, Let me swallow, please, some of this red, red stew, for I am faint. Therefore his name was called Edom, the red one.There, Edom is explicitly tied to red; here, the same name stands amid slaughter and burial. The Hebrew name lets that red meaning surface in the scene, bringing the land’s name into resonance with the slain.
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