What Does 1 Kings 21:14 Mean?

Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, Naboth is stoned, and is dead.

1 Kings 21:14 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, Naboth is stoned, and is dead.

THE KEY

The report is part of the violence’s machinery: it carries the completed killing to the authority that set it in motion.

THE MEANING

The verse holds the moment when violence is complete and its result is sent into the hands of authority. Its words keep act and consequence joined: Naboth is stoned, and he is dead. The report carries that result to the one who arranged it.

THE ROOT

וַיִּשְׁלְחוּ

wayyishleḥu

GROWS FROM

שלח

Send, send forth, release, or let go.

English gives the dispatch; the Hebrew root ⁨שלח⁩ (shalach, send or release) holds the news as something sent forth into another’s reach. Here, the report carries the completed killing from its scene to Jezebel’s authority.

ALSO GROWS

mishloach: Sending, dispatch.

מִשְׁלוֹחַ

This branch makes the report’s movement visible: the killing’s result is dispatched to Jezebel.

shaliach: Messenger, emissary; one who is sent.

שָׁלִיחַ

The people who carry the report act as intermediaries, bringing the news into Jezebel’s reach.

THE PATTERN

A dispatched message carries an act beyond its scene, placing its meaning and next consequence in a receiver’s hands.

And they sent the coat of many colors, and they brought it to their father, and said, This we have found. Perceive now whether it is your son's coat or not.

Genesis 37:32 · SDVThe brothers send the coat as evidence, leaving their father to supply the conclusion it suggests.

Then David said to the messenger, "Thus you shall say to Joab, Let not this thing be evil in your eyes, for the sword devours this one and that one. Grip your battle tighter against the city, and dry it up, and hold him fast."

2 Samuel 11:25 · SDVDavid’s reply travels through a messenger and turns the report of battlefield deaths into an order to continue the assault.

And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.

John 9:7 · SDVAn instruction sent to a man leads him to Siloam, whose name means “Sent,” and he returns seeing.

THE THREAD

Therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden, to serve the ground from which he was taken.

Genesis 3:23 · SDV

Both verses use ⁨שלח⁩ (shalach, send or release): the report is sent to Jezebel, just as Adam is sent forth from Eden. Here the verb sends a message rather than a person, carrying the completed killing into the ruler’s reach.

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