What Does 1 Kings 3:4 Mean?
The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. A thousand rising offerings did Solomon send up upon that altar.
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 the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there; for that was the great high place: a thousand burnt offerings did Solomon offer upon that altar.THE KEY
Solomon goes to the high place to offer עֹלוֹת (ʿōlōt), offerings named for what rises.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a living image of giving that rises: the offering is named by its upward movement. The number makes the offering vast, while Solomon’s name carries the language of wholeness; the scene holds wholeness beside surrender.
THE ROOT
עֹלוֹת
ʿōlōt
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h: go up, ascend; the offering is named for its upward movement.
“rising offerings” in this verse is ʿōlōt. English names these offerings by what happens to them in the fire; Hebrew names them as what goes up. Beside the high place, that shared language of rising becomes part of the verse’s structure.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: go up; ascend
עָלָה
The verb shares the offering’s root, making ascent the seed beneath both the action and the offering.
ʿaliyyah: ascent; going up
עֲלִיָּה
This noun keeps the upward movement visible in the same word family.
לִזְבֹּחַ
lizbōaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
z-b-ḥ: slaughter, especially slaughter for sacrifice.
“sacrifice and altar” in this verse is lizbōaḥ. The verb “sacrifice” and the noun “altar” grow from the same root. Hebrew binds the act to the place where it happens: the altar is named through the offering made there.
ALSO GROWS
zevaḥ: sacrifice; slaughter for an offering
זֶבַח
This noun shares the root of Solomon’s act of sacrificing.
mizbēaḥ: altar
מִזְבֵּחַ
The altar’s name comes from the same root as the act performed upon it.
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shelomoh
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m: be whole, complete, intact.
Solomon’s name carries the consonants of wholeness. Beside עֹלוֹת, “what rises,” it places wholeness and ascent in the same scene.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: wholeness; well-being
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch carries the root’s sense of a whole state.
shalem: whole; complete; intact
שָׁלֵם
This adjective shows the root’s sense of completeness inside Solomon’s name.
THE PATTERN
What is offered to God is pictured as rising into God’s presence.
And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird, and sent up rising offerings on the altar.And its inward parts and its legs he shall wash in water, and the priest shall send all of it up in smoke upon the altar, a rising offering, an offering of fire, a fragrance that settles to the LORD.But I hold everything in full, and I overflow; I am filled, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a fragrance of sweetness, a sacrifice welcomed, well pleasing to God.THE THREAD
Who climbs the mountain of the LORD? Who stands in his set-apart place?“Shall ascend” is יַעֲלֶה (yaʿaleh), from עלה (ʿ-l-h), meaning “go up, ascend”, the same root that names the burnt offering עֹלָה (ʿōlāh), “what rises.” The question of ascent echoes the offering’s own name.
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