What Does 1 Kings 20:37 Mean?
Then he found another man, and said, Strike me, I pray you. And the man struck him, so that in striking he wounded 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
Then he found another man, and said, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man smote him, so that in smiting he wounded him.THE KEY
The repeated Hebrew root נכה (nākāh, to strike) turns a spoken request into a blow that the verse immediately names as a wound.
THE MEANING
You see a spoken request become bodily force: another man strikes, and a wound remains. The prophetic meaning does not erase the injury the body carries.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A prophetic sign is symbolic and therefore leaves no one physically harmed; here the blow ends in a wound.
THE ROOT
וַיַּכֵּהוּ
wayyakkēhû
GROWS FROM
נכה
נכה (nākāh): to strike, beat, smite.
The verse repeats forms of this root in the request to be struck, the man’s blow, and the phrase rendered “in smiting,” linking speech, impact, and continued action. Its related noun מַכָּה (makkāh, a blow or plague) carries the same family from a single strike to a sweeping affliction, while this verse keeps the impact concrete.
ALSO GROWS
nākāh: To strike or smite.
נָכָה
The lexical form shows the full root consonants behind the inflected forms used for the requested and delivered blows.
makkāh: A blow, stroke, or plague.
מַכָּה
The initial nun assimilates before kaf, marked by the doubled kaf; the word family names both an individual blow and affliction at larger scale.
וּפָצוֹעַ
ûpāṣôaʿ
GROWS FROM
פצע
פצע (pāṣaʿ): to wound or injure.
“wounded” in this verse is ûpāṣôaʿ. The verse moves from נכה (nākāh, strike) to פצע (pāṣaʿ, wound), preserving the impact and its bodily result as distinct words. The wound is named explicitly rather than left inside the idea of being struck.
ALSO GROWS
pāṣaʿ: To wound or injure.
פָּצַע
The verb names the action that produces the injury described in the verse.
peṣaʿ: A wound or injury.
פֶּצַע
The related noun gives the same root a form for the injury itself, keeping the result of the blow visible.
THE PATTERN
When a word must be seen, scripture gives it bodily form as a sign.
And the LORD said, As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years, a sign and a wonder upon Egypt and upon Cush.Before their eyes you shall lift it upon your shoulder, and in the dark you shall lift it. You shall cover your face, so that you do not see the earth. For I have set you as a sign to the house of Israel.And when he came to us, he lifted Paul's belt, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus says the Set-Apart Breath, so will the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man whose belt this is, and will hand him over into the hands of the nations.THE THREAD
Then Pashur struck Jeremiah the prophet, and set him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.Jeremiah 20:2 uses the same root נכה (nākāh, strike) for the blow against Jeremiah. The shared root links the bodily acts, while the agency differs: one blow is requested here; the other is imposed there.
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