What Does 1 Kings 20:5 Mean?
And the messengers turned back, and said, Thus speaks Ben-hadad, saying, Though I have sent to you, saying, You shall give me your silver, and your gold, and your wives, and your children;
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 the messengers came again, and said, Thus speaketh Ben-hadad, saying, Although I have sent unto thee, saying, Thou shalt deliver me thy silver, and thy gold, and thy wives, and thy children;THE KEY
The plain verb is “give,” yet the demand reaches into another’s family, showing how the language of transfer can carry coercion.
THE MEANING
The demand returns, now naming what it claims: silver, gold, wives, and children. The word rendered “deliver” is the ordinary verb “give,” but the command makes the transfer coercive. The list shows power reaching past possessions into the household.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Calling a transfer “giving” does not make it voluntary; the command and the list expose the pressure behind the word.
THE ROOT
תִּתֵּן
titten
GROWS FROM
נתן
Give, set, place
Under “deliver” is the ordinary verb “give,” תִּתֵּן (titten, “you shall give”), from נתן (natan, “give, set, place”). The root can speak of gifts and of things placed into another’s hands; here, the command makes the transfer coercive, and the list shows its reach into family life.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: Gift
מַתָּנָה
This noun shares the root of “give,” showing how the same root can name a gift as well as a demanded transfer.
mattan: Present, gift
מַתָּן
This branch also names something given; the verse’s command shows that the root alone does not tell whether a transfer is willing.
THE PATTERN
Power becomes visible when it treats another person’s possessions, labor, or family as available for its own use.
And a wayfarer came to the rich man, and he spared to take from his own flock and his own herd, to make ready for the wayfarer who had come to him. But he took the poor man's lamb and made it ready for the man who had come to him.But Jesus called them to himself and said to them, You know that those who are reckoned to rule over the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.THE THREAD
The wicked borrows and does not make it whole, but the aligned one bends toward and gives.Both verses use נתן (natan, “give”). Psalm 37 places giving beside the aligned person, while here the same root carries a transfer imposed by power; the shared root names the act, and the surrounding relationship reveals its nature.
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