What Does 1 Kings 16:3 Mean?
Behold, I am burning out those who come after Baasha, and those who come after his house, and I will set your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat.
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
Behold, I will take away the posterity of Baasha, and the posterity of his house; and will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb behind “take away” carries the image of burning through and consuming, so the threat reaches Baasha’s whole line.
THE MEANING
This verse confronts the reader with judgment whose reach exceeds one life: it includes Baasha’s house and what follows him. Its violence is dynastic and concrete, and the comparison with Jeroboam’s house gives that sentence a named measure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
That a ruler’s house can remain untouched when judgment falls on its head.
THE ROOT
מַבְעִיר
mavʿir
GROWS FROM
בָּעַר
bāʿar
Burn, kindle, consume; also clear away or remove.
“burning out” in this verse is mavʿir. The verb translated “take away” carries the force of burning or consuming. That makes the threat more than a quiet removal: what follows Baasha is swept into the sentence.
ALSO GROWS
hamavʿir: The one who kindles a fire.
הַמַּבְעִר
In Exodus 22:6, this same root names the one who kindles a fire that can consume a field.
u-biʿarta: You shall clear away or remove.
וּבִעַרְתָּ
In Deuteronomy 13:5, the root describes removing evil from among the people, showing how burning and clearing away meet in the same word-family.
אַחֲרֵי
ʾaḥărê
GROWS FROM
אַחַר
ʾaḥar
Behind, after, what comes later.
The Hebrew repeats “after Baasha and after his house,” while “posterity” gathers those who come after into one English word. The root keeps succession visible: the sentence reaches beyond the person to what follows him.
ALSO GROWS
ʾaḥărōn: Last, latter, or later.
אַחֲרוֹן
This branch makes the time-bound sense of “after” explicit: what comes later remains within the verse’s reach.
ʾaḥărît: The latter end, outcome, or future.
אַחֲרִית
This word names what comes at the end, echoing the verse’s attention to the future of Baasha’s house.
וְנָתַתִּי
wenatattî
GROWS FROM
נָתַן
nātan
Give, set, or place.
The verb rendered “make” is from the root for giving or placing. The house is set into the likeness of Jeroboam’s house, so the comparison becomes an imposed position, not just a resemblance.
ALSO GROWS
vayyittēn: He set or placed.
וַיִּתֵּן
In Genesis 1:17, this form describes the lights being set in the firmament; here the same root places one house in relation to another.
mattānāh: A gift, something given.
מַתָּנָה
This noun preserves the root’s sense of something given or placed, illuminating the force of the sentence’s “I will make”.
THE PATTERN
A destructive course can reach beyond one person, carrying judgment into the house or generation that follows.
Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and I will cut off from Jeroboam him who pisses against the wall, and the bound and the left behind in Israel, and I will burn out the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as one burns the dung until it is all used up.You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a God who burns, visiting the crookedness of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.So that upon you may come all the aligned blood poured out upon the earth, from the blood of the aligned Abel to the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.THE THREAD
If fire goes out and catches in thorns, so that heaped grain, or standing grain, or the field, is eaten with it, the one who kindled the fire shall surely make it whole.In Exodus, forms of the same root describe the one who kindles a fire and the fire itself. Here that root underlies “take away,” opening a concrete image of judgment that burns through what follows Baasha.
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