What Does 1 Kings 15:26 Mean?
And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father, and in his falling short with which he 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 did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin.THE KEY
The same Hebrew root names both his own missing and the missing he causes in Israel, joining personal failure to collective harm.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks of how a person’s own missing can become a path others are drawn into. When a familiar pattern is repeated, its effects spread beyond the one who repeats it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a failure stays private is undone here: one person’s pattern can pull others into the same missing.
THE ROOT
וַיַּחֲטִא
wayyaḥăṭiʾ
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥṭʾ
To miss, go wrong, or fail to reach.
“caused Israel to miss the mark” in this verse is wayyaḥăṭiʾ. The verse uses this root first in the word for his own “sin,” then in a causative form for what he does to Israel. Hebrew holds together the person’s own missing and the act of leading others into the same missing.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: To miss; to sin.
חָטָא
This is the root’s basic action, naming the failure that belongs to the person himself.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: Sin; in another use, an offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
This is the noun translated “sin” earlier in the verse, from the same root as the later causative form.
heḥĕṭî: To cause someone to miss; to lead into sin.
הֶחֱטִיא
This causative form makes the effect on Israel explicit: his missing becomes a means by which others miss too.
דֶּרֶךְ
derekh
GROWS FROM
דרך
drk
To tread or step along.
The word for “way” is linked with the act of treading. The father’s way is an already-trodden track, making the son’s repetition a path taken in both senses.
ALSO GROWS
derekh: Way, road, course, or manner.
דֶּרֶךְ
This is the word translated “way,” describing the course the son follows.
dārak: To tread or step; to tread a path.
דָּרַךְ
This related verb brings the physical act of stepping into the image of walking in a familiar course.
THE PATTERN
A repeated path can carry one person’s failure into the lives of others.
And he shall give Israel over because of the shortcomings of Jeroboam, who missed the mark and who caused Israel to miss the mark.So let us no longer judge one another, but judge this instead, that no one sets a stone to strike against, or a trap, in his brother's way.But whoever causes one of these little ones who lean their weight into me to stumble, it is better for him that a donkey's millstone be hung about his neck, and that he be sunk down into the deep of the sea.THE THREAD
And he shall give Israel over because of the shortcomings of Jeroboam, who missed the mark and who caused Israel to miss the mark.The same חטא (ḥṭʾ, “miss”) root names both personal sin and causing Israel to sin. Its recurrence reveals the mechanism: one person’s missing can become a path others are led to follow.
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