What Does 1 Kings 14:1 Mean?
At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick.
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
At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick.THE KEY
The verse places bodily weakness inside the king’s household without explaining why, so illness appears as vulnerability rather than verdict.
THE MEANING
Your body can become vulnerable within any household, including one with power. The verse names Abijah’s illness without giving its cause or turning it into a moral verdict.
THE ROOT
חָלָה
ḥālāh
GROWS FROM
חלה
To become weak or ill; to be sick.
“fell sick” in this verse is ḥālāh. The same root names both becoming ill and illness itself, keeping the event and its condition together. Here, it names Abijah’s bodily vulnerability without supplying a cause or verdict.
ALSO GROWS
ḥolī: Sickness, illness.
חֹלִי
This noun shares the root חלה and makes explicit the condition named by the verb in the verse.
maḥălāh: Disease, illness.
מַחֲלָה
This word also grows from חלה, showing how the root names illness as both an event and an ongoing condition.
THE PATTERN
Illness makes human need visible and brings response into view.
But Jesus, hearing this, said to them, Those who are strong have no need of a healer, but those who fare badly.Is anyone among you without strength? Let him call to himself the older ones of the assembly, and let them pray over him, rubbing him with oil in the nature of the LORD.THE THREAD
After these words, it came to pass that someone told Joseph, Behold, your father is sick. And he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.The Hebrew root חלה names sickness in both verses, linking Abijah’s illness with Jacob’s. Both place bodily vulnerability within a family and let the response to it become part of what follows.
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