What Does 1 Kings 13:3 Mean?
And he gave a sign that same day, saying, This is the sign which the LORD has spoken. Look, the altar will split apart, and the ashes that are upon it will be poured out.
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 gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the LORD hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out.THE KEY
The sign is a single undoing: the altar tears, and the residue it holds is poured out with it.
THE MEANING
A spoken word takes visible form in the break of what appears fixed: the altar tears, and its ashes spill outward. The structure and what it carries fail together. The sign is recognized in the open, not kept as a hidden claim.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that an altar’s sacred role makes it untouchable or permanent.
THE ROOT
דֶּשֶׁן
deshen
GROWS FROM
ד־ש־ן
d-sh-n
To grow fat or become luxuriant; fatness, richness.
The Hebrew word for these sacrificial ashes also names fatness and richness. The altar’s residue still carries the language of its rich offering as it spills out.
ALSO GROWS
dashen: Grow fat; become luxuriant.
דָּשֵׁן
This verb shows the root’s connection to abundance, a shade that remains beneath the word for altar ashes.
deshen: Fatness, richness; also sacrificial ashes.
דֶּשֶׁן
The same word can name both richness and what remains after sacrifice, giving the spilled residue more meaning than mere waste.
נִקְרָע
niqraʿ
GROWS FROM
ק־ר־ע
q-r-ʿ
Tear, rend, split.
“split apart” in this verse is niqraʿ. The verb for the altar being rent is the same root used for tearing garments, including in grief. English preserves the rupture but hides this concrete echo of a familiar human act.
ALSO GROWS
qaraʿ: Tear or rend; also tear clothing.
קָרַע
The root makes the altar’s breaking a vivid act of tearing, rather than a vague sign of damage.
qeraʿ: A tear, rent, or breach.
קֶרַע
This noun names the opening a tear leaves, drawing attention to the breach created in the altar.
נִשְׁפַּךְ
nishpakh
GROWS FROM
ש־פ־ך
sh-p-kh
Pour out, spill; cause contents to flow outward.
“poured out” in this verse is nishpakh. The Hebrew verb makes the ashes’ movement forceful and visible: what rested on the altar does not simply disappear, but spills out from it. The sign includes both the break and the movement of what the break releases.
ALSO GROWS
shaphakh: Pour out or spill.
שָׁפַךְ
This active form names the same physical action that appears here in a passive form.
shefikhah: Pouring out; outpouring.
שְׁפִיכָה
This noun names the spill as an event, emphasizing the movement from being held to flowing outward.
THE PATTERN
A spoken verdict becomes visible when a structure treated as fixed is shown breaking apart.
And you will say to them, Thus says the LORD of hosts; Even so I will shatter this people and this city, as one shatters a potter's vessel that cannot be healed again. And they will bury them in Tophet, until there is no room to bury.As for these things you gaze upon, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another, but each will be loosed and torn down.THE THREAD
The altar also was split apart, and the ashes were poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the LORD.The next verse repeats the same two actions: the altar is rent and the ashes are poured out. It turns the announced sign into an observed event, completing the movement from rupture to spill.
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