What Does 1 Kings 22:2 Mean?
And it came to pass in the third year, that Jehoshaphat king of Judah came down to the king of Israel.
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 it came to pass in the third year, that Jehoshaphat the king of Judah came down to the king of Israel.THE KEY
The king who comes down to Israel bears a name that places judgment under YHWH.
THE MEANING
A meeting between two kings begins with Jehoshaphat coming down to Israel’s king. His name carries the nature “YHWH judges,” placing this encounter beneath a judgment larger than either throne.
THE ROOT
יְהוֹשָׁפָט
Yehoshaphat
GROWS FROM
שׁפט
To judge, govern, or decide a case; the name means “YHWH has judged.”
Jehoshaphat’s name compresses a claim about who judges into the king’s identity. The same root forms words for a judge and for the ordering called mishpat, so judgment is present in the name before the meeting unfolds.
ALSO GROWS
shofet: Judge or ruler
שֹׁפֵט
This branch shows the root’s connection between judging and governing, the nature carried in Jehoshaphat’s name as he approaches another king.
mishpat: Judgment, justice, or legal order
מִשְׁפָּט
This branch gives judgment a wider shape: not only a decision, but the order that governs a people.
THE PATTERN
A meeting takes shape when someone crosses the distance toward another.
And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept.So the king turned back and came to Jordan. And Judah came to Gilgal, to go to meet the king, to bring the king across Jordan.And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, fell at his feet, and bowed down before him.THE THREAD
So give your servant a heart that hears and responds, to judge your people, so that I may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge this heavy people of yours?The word translated “judge” comes from the same Hebrew root, שׁפט (sh-p-t), carried in Jehoshaphat’s name: “YHWH has judged.” Solomon’s request shows that this root also reaches into the discernment and ordering of a people.
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