What Does 1 Kings 15:23 Mean?
The rest of all the words of Asa, and all his might, and all that he did, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Judah? Yet in the time of his old age he was sick in his feet.
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
The rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his might, and all that he did, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? Nevertheless in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet.THE KEY
The record sets his might and cities beside diseased feet, showing that achievement does not make the body invulnerable.
THE MEANING
Your accomplishments do not make your body invulnerable; strength and physical vulnerability can occupy the same life. Here, illness remains particular and bodily: diseased feet stand in the record beside deeds, might, and cities.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that enough achievement or strength should shield a body from illness does not hold here.
THE ROOT
חָלָה
chalah
GROWS FROM
חלה
To be weak, sick, or afflicted.
“sick” in this verse is chalah. The line places bodily weakness after a list of deeds and might without letting either cancel the other. The root keeps the illness concrete: a condition in the body, not a verdict on the value of what he has done.
ALSO GROWS
choli: Sickness or illness.
חֳלִי
This noun names the condition carried by the same root and makes the verse’s bodily vulnerability explicit.
choleh: A sick or ill person.
חוֹלֶה
This branch describes the person in the state named by the verb: illness belongs to a living body, even one remembered for its strength.
רַגְלָיו
raglav
GROWS FROM
רגל
Foot or leg; the part of the body used for going about on foot.
English names a body part, while the Hebrew root also carries the motion organized by that part. The illness is located in the feet, the body’s means of going about, keeping the vulnerability physical and specific.
ALSO GROWS
regel: Foot or leg.
רֶגֶל
This is the body part named in the verse, where illness touches the means of movement.
ragal: To go about, including to scout or spy out.
רָגַל
This verbal branch links the foot with going about, making the diseased feet a limit on ordinary movement.
גְּבוּרָה
gevurah
GROWS FROM
גבר
To be strong or prevail.
The same line that names Asa’s might also names his diseased feet. The root family holds strength and prevailing in view, while the verse gives that strength a limit: might does not govern every condition of the body.
ALSO GROWS
gavar: To be strong or prevail.
גָּבַר
This verb carries the force contained in the word for might.
gibbor: A mighty one or warrior.
גִּבּוֹר
This branch shows how the root can describe a person marked by strength, sharpening the contrast with bodily illness in the same verse.
THE PATTERN
Human strength and achievement can coexist with a body’s vulnerability and limits.
In the day when the watchers of the house tremble, and the men of strength bow themselves, and the grinders stop because they have grown small, and those who look out through the windows are darkened;For he perceives our shape; he remembers that we are dust.But we hold this treasure in clay vessels, so that the overflow of strength may be of God and not from us.THE THREAD
And Asa, in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, was sick in his feet, until his sickness was exceedingly great. Yet in his sickness he sought not the LORD, but the healers.The companion account repeats חָלָה (chalah, to be sick), then says the disease grows severe and records where Asa turns for help. That continuation makes the diseased feet the hinge of a fuller portrait of bodily vulnerability and response.
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