What Does 1 Kings 2:16 Mean?
And now I ask one request of you. Do not turn my face away. And she said to him, Speak.
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 now I ask one petition of thee, deny me not. And she said unto him, Say on.THE KEY
Before he names the request, he asks the hearer not to turn his face away, the first thing he seeks is access to the listener.
THE MEANING
You meet a request that asks for a hearing before disclosing what it wants: “deny me not” pictures a face not turned away. “Say on” opens space for speech, but the petition remains unanswered; hearing and agreeing are not yet the same act.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being willing to hear a request is not the same as agreeing to it.
THE ROOT
אַל־תָּשִׁבִי אֶת־פָּנָי
al-tashivi et-panai
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
Turn, return; here, turn someone’s face away.
“do not turn my face away” in this verse is al-tashivi et-panai. The Hebrew pictures refusal as turning the speaker’s face back. The appeal is for an open face, a hearing, before the request itself is revealed.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: Turn, return.
שׁוּב
This is the root movement in the phrase: a face can be turned away or turned back toward someone.
teshuvah: Return; answer or response.
תְּשׁוּבָה
The word’s connection to turning lets an answer carry the sense of something returned to the one who asked.
שְׁאֵלָה אַחַת אָנֹכִי שֹׁאֵל
she'elah achat anokhi
GROWS FROM
שׁאל
sha'al
Ask, inquire, request.
The Hebrew pairs the noun for “petition” with a verb from the same root: “one petition I am asking.” The repeated seed keeps attention on the act of asking, while the content is still withheld.
ALSO GROWS
she'elah: A request or petition.
שְׁאֵלָה
This is the noun translated “petition,” one form of the root’s act of asking.
sha'al: Ask or inquire.
שָׁאַל
The verb shares the petition’s root, making the request noun and the act of asking sound like one thought.
THE PATTERN
A request is spoken into a relationship, while its answer remains with the one who hears it.
For this child I prayed, and the LORD has given me the request I asked of him.Ask of me, and I give you the nations for your inheritance, and the far edges of the earth as what your hands grasp.Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.THE THREAD
Then she said, I ask one small request of you. Please, do not turn my face away. And the king said to her, Ask, my mother, for I will not turn your face away.Bathsheba’s “say me not nay” echoes Adonijah’s “deny me not”: both phrases use שׁוּב (shuv, turn or return) with “face,” though the KJV renders the idiom differently. The repeated image makes refusal a turning away, as each request seeks assurance before its substance is disclosed.
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