What Does 1 Kings 3:13 Mean?
And I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and weight, so that among the kings there shall be none like you all your days.
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 I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honour: so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days.THE KEY
The gift exceeds the request, and even “honour” carries the hidden sense of weight, not merely applause.
THE MEANING
Your request does not set the ceiling on what can be given. The verse names provision and weighty regard as gifts that reach beyond what you ask.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that only what you can articulate can be given to you.
THE ROOT
כָּבוֹד
kavod
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty.
The Hebrew word for honour grows from the sense of weight. What English can make sound like praise or status also carries the sense of substance and importance.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy; weighty.
כָּבֵד
This physical sense is the seed beneath kavod, showing that honour carries weight.
kabbed: To honor; to give weight.
כַּבֵּד
This form connects honoring someone with treating that person as weighty, not merely praising them.
נָתַתִּי
natatti
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
The verb translated “given” belongs to a root that also means to set or place. The riches and honour are presented as gifts placed beyond the limit of the request.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This root holds the act of giving together with setting something in place.
mattan: A gift.
מַתָּן
This noun from the same root names what is given, linking the action in the verse to the gift itself.
שָׁאַלְתָּ
sha'alta
GROWS FROM
שאל
sh-ʾ-l
To ask, seek, or request.
The word translated “asked” belongs to the root of requesting. The verse draws a precise boundary: what is given reaches beyond what the request contains.
ALSO GROWS
she'elah: A request or petition.
שְׁאֵלָה
This noun makes explicit the act of asking that the verse sets beside the unasked gifts.
Sha'ul: Asked for; requested.
שָׁאוּל
This name shares the asking root, echoing the distinction between what is requested and what arrives unasked.
THE PATTERN
The reach of a gift can extend beyond what a person knows to ask for.
For you meet him with blessings of goodness, and you set a crown of pure gold on his head.So do not become like them, for your Father knows what you have need of before you ask him.Now to him who is strong enough to do beyond all that we ask or perceive, overflowing past measure, according to the strength that works in us.THE THREAD
Both riches and weight come from your face, and you reign over all; and in your hand is strength and might, and in your hand it is to make great, and to strengthen all.The word translated “honour” is כָּבוֹד (kavod), the same weight-bearing word used in 1 Kings 3:13. This verse names both riches and that weight as coming from God’s hand.
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