What Does 1 Kings 14:16 Mean?
And he shall give Israel over because of the shortcomings of Jeroboam, who missed the mark and who caused Israel to miss the mark.
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 shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.THE KEY
The verse uses one Hebrew root for Jeroboam’s own miss and the miss he produces in Israel, showing how one person’s failure can become a people’s direction.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now wherever one person’s missing becomes a pattern imposed on a people: God gives the people over to the consequences of that pattern. The same root binds the first miss to the miss it reproduces, making private distortion a shared direction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a leader’s choices affect only that leader dissolves here: what one person makes a pattern can shape a whole people.
THE ROOT
חָטָא
ḥāṭāʾ
GROWS FROM
חטא
To miss, fail to reach.
“missed the mark” in this verse is ḥāṭāʾ. The verse repeats one seed: Jeroboam חָטָא (ḥāṭāʾ, misses), then הֶחֱטִיא (heḥĕṭîʾ, causes to miss) Israel. The second verb is a causative form of the first, revealing how a personal miss can be reproduced as a people’s direction.
ALSO GROWS
chet: Missing; the act of missing.
חֵטְא
This noun keeps “sin” tied to a miss, so the repeated act in the verse can also become a direction others follow.
ḥōṭēʾ: One who misses; a sinner.
חוֹטֵא
The person is named by the action, making the link between Jeroboam’s own miss and the miss he produces visible.
יָרָבְעָם
Yārāḇʿām
GROWS FROM
ריב
To contend, strive, dispute.
Jeroboam’s name (יָרָבְעָם, Yārāḇʿām) is understood as “the people contend,” joining ריב (rîḇ, contend) with עָם (ʿām, people). In a verse where one king’s miss becomes Israel’s miss, the name echoes the people whose direction he shapes.
ALSO GROWS
rîḇ: To contend or dispute.
רִיב
The root in Jeroboam’s name carries a sense of contention, echoing the conflict embodied in a leader whose actions shape the people.
mərîḇāh: Contention; dispute.
מְרִיבָה
This branch shows the same root taking form as shared strife, fitting the verse’s movement from one person’s action to a people’s condition.
THE PATTERN
When one person’s way of missing becomes a model, its consequences can spread through the people shaped by it.
But the children of Israel broke trust with the devoted thing, for Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took from the devoted thing, and the burning of the LORD's anger flared against the children of Israel.Let them go. They are blind guides of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.Therefore, as through one man falling short entered into the world, and death through it; and so death passed through to all people, because all have missed the mark.THE THREAD
But if you will not do so, look, you have missed the mark against the LORD, and know that your falling short will find you.Numbers 32:23 uses חָטָא (ḥāṭāʾ, miss) in “sinned” and “sin.” Here the same root shows a miss spreading through a people; in Numbers, it also names the miss as something that comes into the open.
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