What Does 1 Kings 20:35 Mean?
And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said to his neighbor in the word of the LORD, Strike me, I pray you. And the man refused to strike him.
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 a certain man of the sons of the prophets said unto his neighbour in the word of the LORD, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man refused to smite him.THE KEY
A real blow stands inside the phrase “the word of the LORD,” holding divine authority and bodily violence in the same frame.
THE MEANING
You meet a clash between a word presented as coming from the LORD and a request for a real blow: one person asks, and the other refuses. The verse keeps the refusal visible without making the commanded violence abstract or gentle.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It unsettles the belief that refusing an act is automatically innocent: here, the refusal answers a request framed as the LORD’s word.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak; as a noun, a word, matter, or affair.
Davar can name both what is spoken and the matter at hand, so “in the word of the LORD” gives the request the force of a concrete commission. Speech is followed at once by “strike me”: the word reaches toward a bodily act.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֶּר
The verb and the noun share the root, linking the spoken word to the matter it sets before the hearer.
davar: A word, matter, or affair.
דָּבָר
This wider sense helps the phrase carry more than sound: it frames the request as something to be answered in action.
הַכֵּנִי
hakkeni
GROWS FROM
נכה
Strike or beat.
“strike” in this verse is hakkeni. The root names a physical blow, not a vague rebuke. It keeps the violence exposed even as “the word of the LORD” gives the request its authority.
ALSO GROWS
makkah: A blow, wound, or plague.
מַכָּה
This noun preserves the force of the strike requested here.
hikkah: He struck.
הִכָּה
This verb form makes clear that the root can describe a completed bodily act.
THE PATTERN
A word that claims authority presses beyond hearing into a concrete response.
But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.Why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
Then he found another man, and said, Strike me, I pray you. And the man struck him, so that in striking he wounded him.The same Hebrew root for “smite” appears again, but this time the other man strikes and wounds the prophet. The repeated word makes the first refusal sharper: the blow is real, and the story turns on how each man answers the request.
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