What Does 1 Kings 15:7 Mean?
Now the rest of the words of Abijam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam.
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
Now the rest of the acts of Abijam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam.THE KEY
The verse folds war into the king’s record of deeds, making conflict part of what his rule is remembered for.
THE MEANING
The record holds a ruler’s deeds beside the conflict running through his reign. For the reader now, the pairing shows how a life’s public work and struggle can belong to one account rather than two separate stories.
THE ROOT
מִלְחָמָה
milḥāmāh
GROWS FROM
ל־ח־ם
l-ḥ-m
to fight, to contend
The word translated “war” grows from a verb for fighting, so it names active contention, not only an abstract condition. The verse places that contest inside the account of a king’s deeds: the struggle becomes part of what his rule is remembered for.
ALSO GROWS
lāḥam: to fight, to engage in battle
לָחַם
The noun for war grows from an action: the verse’s conflict is something people actively do.
ʾîš milḥāmāh: a man of war, a warrior
אִישׁ מִלְחָמָה
This phrase uses the same word for war to describe a person in relation to battle, echoing how conflict is included in the king’s record.
THE PATTERN
Public authority is repeatedly made visible through its relationship to conflict.
Now the words of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer concerning genealogies? And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days.A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of wholeness.Jesus answered, My governance is not from this world. If my governance were from this world, my attendants would have struggled, so that I would not be handed over to the Judeans. But now my governance is not from here.THE THREAD
In hunger he buys you back from death, and in battle from the hand of the sword.Job uses the same Hebrew word מִלְחָמָה (milḥāmāh, war), but places a person inside the danger of the sword. That echo opens the royal notice outward: war marks not only a king’s contested rule but also the vulnerability carried by those caught in it.
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