What Does 1 Kings 14:24 Mean?
And there were also set-apart men in the land. They did according to all the recoiling things of the nations, which the LORD drove out before the children of Israel.
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 there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.THE KEY
The word rendered “sodomites” shares its root with “holy,” exposing how consecration language can name a role whose practice the verse condemns.
THE MEANING
The verse places a consecrated role beside practices it calls abominations; sacred standing alone does not settle whether those practices belong within the covenant. It speaks to you now wherever a sacred name and the conduct beneath it are in conflict.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A religious title or setting makes whatever it shelters acceptable to God.
THE ROOT
קָדֵשׁ
qādēš
GROWS FROM
קדשׁ
q-d-sh
To set apart; consecrate.
“sodomites” in this verse is qādēš. In this context, the noun is usually understood as a male cult functionary, often specifically a cult prostitute; it names a cultic role rather than a sexual orientation. Its shared root with words for “holy” and “sacred” creates the verse’s tension: consecration language marks the role, while the verse places its practice among what it rejects.
ALSO GROWS
qādōsh: Set apart; holy.
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective shares the root and shows how the same set-apart language can name a calling to holiness.
qōdesh: Sacredness; a holy thing or place.
קֹדֶשׁ
This branch brings the role’s sacred register into view, while the verse’s next clause makes clear that consecrated language does not itself mean approval.
THE PATTERN
Consecration names a calling whose meaning is shown by the conduct attached to it.
Speak to all the assembly of the children of Israel, and say to them, You shall be set apart, for I, the LORD your God, am set apart.There shall be no set-apart harlot of the daughters of Israel, nor a set-apart male harlot of the sons of Israel.but as the one who called you is set apart, you also become set apart in all your walk.THE THREAD
And he tore down the houses of the set-apart men, which were beside the house of the LORD, where the women wove tents for the Asherah pole.This verse uses the same root, קדשׁ (q-d-sh, “set apart”), and places those houses beside the house of the LORD. The shared root and physical proximity sharpen the tension: cultic status and divine approval are not identical.
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