What Does 1 Kings 21:5 Mean?
But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said to him, Why is your breath so seething, that you eat no bread?
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
But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread?THE KEY
The Hebrew pictures a spirit turned aside, while the untouched bread makes that inward turn visible.
THE MEANING
When your inward life turns aside, ordinary rhythms can show the change before you can explain it. The verse holds the inner state beside the untouched bread: heaviness has become visible at the table. Someone else can notice what you have not yet put into words.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that inward struggle stays invisible until it is spoken: here, it appears in the ordinary sign of uneaten bread.
THE ROOT
סָרָה
sarah
GROWS FROM
סור
Turn aside, depart, or withdraw.
“seething” in this verse is sarah. The word rendered “sad” also carries the sense of being turned aside or having departed. Beside “spirit,” it pictures an inward state as a turning away, and the untouched bread makes that turn visible.
ALSO GROWS
asurah: I will turn aside.
אָסוּרָה
This is the form used when Moses says he will turn aside to look at the burning bush (Exodus 3:3).
sar: Turned aside; departed.
סָר
This form preserves the same movement of turning away that the verse gives to Ahab’s inward state.
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
Air in motion; blowing.
English separates this word into “spirit,” “wind,” and “breath,” while Hebrew holds those meanings in one word. Here, that unity keeps Ahab’s inward heaviness close to breath and wind without reducing one to the other.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Wind.
רוּחַ
The same word names moving air, showing that its meaning reaches beyond an inward state.
ruach: Breath; spirit.
רוּחַ
The same word can name breath and the inner spirit, letting the verse hold both senses together.
THE PATTERN
Scripture shows inward distress reaching ordinary nourishment, so the table can disclose what the heart carries.
And so it was, year by year, when she went up to the house of the LORD, that Peninnah chafed her, so Hannah wept and did not eat.For my groaning comes before my bread, and my roaring pours out like waters.My heart is struck and dries like grass, for I forget to eat my bread.THE THREAD
And Moses said, Let me turn aside now and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.The word translated “sad” shares the root סור (sur, “turn aside”) with Moses’ words, “I will now turn aside.” There the turn brings him toward what he sees; here Ahab’s inward state is described as turned aside, and the untouched meal makes the change visible.
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