What Does 1 Kings 4:24 Mean?
For he trod down all the region on this side of the River, from Tiphsah to Azzah, and all the kings on this side of the River; and he had wholeness on every side round about him.
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
For he had dominion over all the region on this side the river, from Tiphsah even to Azzah, over all the kings on this side the river: and he had peace on all sides round about him.THE KEY
The verse places peace around the king inside the same frame as his dominion across a whole region.
THE MEANING
Peace here is public as well as personal: it extends around a ruler across a defined territory. The same frame leaves political power visible beside the calm, naming dominion over lands and kings.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This verse undoes the assumption that peace is only an inward feeling; it describes peace as a condition surrounding a realm.
THE ROOT
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be complete or whole; in verbal forms, to complete or repay.
The verse’s peace is wider than private calm: shalom names wholeness or well-being, and here it fills the space around a ruler after the verse traces the reach of his authority. The shared root carries a sense of settled completeness, though it does not itself say why this peace exists.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch reveals the wholeness held within the verse’s word for peace.
shillem: Repay, make good
שִׁלֵּם
The same root can describe making an account complete, extending shalom beyond mere quiet toward a settled condition.
רֹדֶה
rodeh
GROWS FROM
רדה
r-d-h
To rule, exercise dominion, or tread down.
“trod down” in this verse is rodeh. The Hebrew form רֹדֶה (rodeh, ruling) gives the king’s peace a political frame: authority over territory and kings is part of the same picture. This root can describe dominion entrusted to humanity and dominion that must not become harsh, so the word names power without making its manner disappear.
ALSO GROWS
veyirdu: And let them have dominion
וְיִרְדּוּ
This form appears in Genesis 1:26, where the same root describes human dominion over living creatures.
tirdeh: You shall rule
תִרְדֶּה
In Leviticus 25:43, this form appears in the warning not to rule over another with harshness, showing that the root names an exercise of power whose manner matters.
THE PATTERN
Peace is pictured as a condition that occupies public space, from city walls to a kingdom, and can also be given into a person’s troubled life.
Let there be wholeness within your walls, and ease within your palaces.There shall be no end to the growth of his governance and wholeness, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to set it firm and to support it with judgment and with alignment, from now and into the ages. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.Wholeness I leave with you; my wholeness I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be stirred, and do not let it shrink.THE THREAD
Let there be wholeness within your walls, and ease within your palaces.Both verses use שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness or peace) as a spatial condition: here it surrounds the ruler, while Psalm 122 places it within the city’s walls. The shared root makes peace more than a vague feeling; it describes the well-being of an inhabited place.
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