What Does 1 Kings 15:30 Mean?
Because of the shortcomings of Jeroboam, which he did, and with which he caused Israel to miss the mark, by the provocation with which he provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger.
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
Because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and which he made Israel sin, by his provocation wherewith he provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger.THE KEY
The same root names both Jeroboam’s own missing and the missing he causes in Israel: one person’s miss becomes a people’s path.
THE MEANING
The verse makes visible a living pattern: a miss does not remain private when one person turns it into a path for others. The same root describes Jeroboam missing and causing Israel to miss, and that shared path provokes the LORD God of Israel to anger. One person’s chosen way can become a people’s way.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a leader’s failure stops with the leader: what he causes others to practice becomes part of the charge.
THE ROOT
חטא
ḥṭʾ ḥāṭāʾ heḥĕṭîʾ
GROWS FROM
חטא
to miss
“shortcomings” in this verse is ḥṭʾ ḥāṭāʾ heḥĕṭîʾ. Hebrew repeats one root for Jeroboam’s own missing and the missing he causes Israel to do. The causative form makes the miss reproducible: what one person misses becomes something a people are made to miss.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: to miss; to sin
חָטָא
This is the form describing Jeroboam’s own act: the root’s movement begins with one person.
heḥĕṭîʾ: to cause to miss; to lead into sin
הֶחֱטִיא
This causative form describes the miss spreading from Jeroboam to Israel.
כַּעַס
kaʿas hikʿîs
GROWS FROM
כעס
anger; to provoke anger
The verse repeats this root in the provocation and in the act of provoking the LORD. The wording traces the consequence of the shared missing directly into the anger it stirs.
ALSO GROWS
kaʿas: anger; provocation
כַּעַס
This names the provoking act that accompanies the spread of the miss.
hikʿîs: to provoke to anger
הִכְעִיס
This causative form names the effect of that act on the LORD God of Israel.
THE PATTERN
One person’s chosen way can become a shared condition, carrying consequences beyond the person who begins it.
Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations, and has done more evil than all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and has made Judah also miss the mark with his idols.For as through the deafness of one man the many were set as those who miss the mark, so also through the hearing and response of one the many shall be set in alignment.THE THREAD
For his shortcomings, in which he missed the mark in doing evil in the eyes of the LORD, in walking in the way of Jeroboam, and in his falling short he did, causing Israel to miss the mark.The same Hebrew root חטא appears in “sins,” “sinned,” and “to make Israel to sin.” Here the verse shows the miss becoming a walk in Jeroboam’s way: a pattern that another person carries forward.
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