What Does 1 Kings 22:5 Mean?
And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, Inquire, I ask you, at the word of the LORD today.
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 Jehoshaphat said unto the king of Israel, Enquire, I pray thee, at the word of the LORD to day.THE KEY
The king is asked to seek a word for this day, because *davar* is both an utterance and the matter it speaks into.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a decision open until the LORD’s word is sought today. Its living pressure is that the matter before the reader is held up to a voice beyond the confidence of the people making the choice.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that a human decision-maker can settle the matter without asking what the LORD says.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak or utter; as a noun, a word, matter, or thing.
English “word” can sound like language detached from events, but *davar* can name both an utterance and the matter at hand. The request is for the LORD’s word in the actual decision before them, today.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
The spoken act and the word share the same root: the sought word is speech, not merely a label.
devarim: Words, matters, or things.
דְּבָרִים
This plural keeps utterance and matter within one word-family, giving the LORD’s word a bearing on what is happening now.
דְּרָשׁ
derash
GROWS FROM
דרש
To seek, inquire, or resort to.
“Enquire” in this verse is derash. The request carries the sense of seeking out and consulting, not simply asking a passing question. The word of the LORD is something to be sought for the present matter.
ALSO GROWS
derishah: Inquiry or investigation.
דְּרִישָׁה
It shows the searching quality held in the request to enquire.
midrash: Inquiry or exposition.
מִדְרָשׁ
This related form preserves the same movement of seeking and drawing out meaning.
יְהוֹשָׁפָט
Yehoshafat
GROWS FROM
שפט
To judge or decide.
“Jehoshaphat” in this verse is Yehoshafat. The name carries the sense “YHWH has judged.” In this sentence, the one bearing that name calls for the LORD’s word, placing the matter under divine judgment rather than treating a human decision as final.
ALSO GROWS
shofet: A judge.
שֹׁפֵט
The name’s root appears in the word for one who judges.
mishpat: Judgment or justice.
מִשְׁפָּט
This branch connects the name to the act or outcome of judgment.
THE PATTERN
Direction begins when the present matter is brought before God and his word is allowed to shape the path.
Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.In all your ways, perceive him, and he straightens your paths.But if any of you is left behind in wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all without doubling and without taunting, and it will be given him.THE THREAD
And he bent you low, and made you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had never perceived, nor had your fathers, so that he might make you perceive that humankind does not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes out from the mouth of the LORD does humankind live.The word translated “word” is the same Hebrew *davar* (דָּבָר), which can name both utterance and matter. Together, the verses present the LORD’s word as something that meets the real conditions of a person’s life, not as detached information.
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