What Does 1 Kings 14:21 Mean?
And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the LORD chose out of all the tribes of Israel, to set his name there. And his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonitess.
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 Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess.THE KEY
Jerusalem is defined by the LORD’s nature set there, while a king’s reign is counted.
THE MEANING
The verse sets visible rule beside a deeper identity: Jerusalem bears the LORD’s name, his nature. Naamah’s Ammonite origin also places the royal family within a story that crosses tribal borders.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that whoever holds power defines a place’s deepest identity; the verse locates that identity in the LORD’s choice and the Name set there.
THE ROOT
לָשׂוּם
lasum
GROWS FROM
שׂים
s-y-m
to set, place, or put
“to set his name there” in this verse is lasum. The verb says the Name is set in a place. שְׁמוֹ (shemō, “his name,” carrying his nature) stands beside שָׁם (shām, “there”): the same ש־ם consonant shape lets nature and location echo one another.
ALSO GROWS
sām: set or placed
שָׂם
This form makes the act concrete: the Name is placed in the city.
yāsîm: he will set or place
יָשִׂים
The same root describes setting something in a chosen location, as the verse does with the Name.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
sh-l-m
to be whole or complete
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The city’s name carries shalom, wholeness, with the dual ending -ayim opening the image toward twofold wholeness. Here that wholeness belongs to the city chosen to bear the LORD’s nature.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: wholeness, well-being
שָׁלוֹם
It reveals the city’s name as more than a location: it evokes the wholeness associated with the Name placed there.
shalem: whole or complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the city’s wholeness a state of completeness, not merely a royal address.
THE PATTERN
The divine name is the nature made present in a chosen place and among people.
But to the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to place his nature there, even to his dwelling you shall seek, and there you shall come.And the LORD came down in the cloud, and stood with him there, and called upon the nature of the LORD.I have made your nature known to them, and I will make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.THE THREAD
But to the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to place his nature there, even to his dwelling you shall seek, and there you shall come.This repeats the verse’s structure: a place is chosen, and the LORD’s Name is put there. The shared verb לָשׂוּם (lasum, “to place”) shows the city bearing the Name as a recurring pattern, not an incidental detail of a reign.
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