What Does 1 Kings 5:6 Mean?
And now, command that they cut cedars for me from Lebanon, and my servants will be with your servants, and I will give you the wages of your servants according to all you say, for you know that among us there is none who knows how to cut trees like the Sidonians.
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
Now therefore command thou that they hew me cedar trees out of Lebanon; and my servants shall be with thy servants: and unto thee will I give hire for thy servants according to all that thou shalt appoint: for thou knowest that there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians.THE KEY
Hebrew uses the same root for “knowest” and “can skill,” naming craftsmanship as knowledge embodied in action.
THE MEANING
This verse holds a shared undertaking together across unequal abilities: one side knows how to cut cedar where the other does not. Labor is joined, and the workers’ hire is agreed according to the terms named; recognizing another’s expertise becomes part of making the work possible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that lacking a skill means the work must stop or be done alone: expertise can come from elsewhere and be paid for.
THE ROOT
יֹדֵעַ
yōdēaʿ
GROWS FROM
ידע
to know or perceive; here, to know how through skilled familiarity
“you know” in this verse is yōdēaʿ. English uses two different words, “knowest” and “skill”, where Hebrew repeats the root ידע. The verse treats craft as a form of knowing: the cedar worker’s knowledge is carried in the ability to cut it.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: to know, perceive
יָדַע
The verse’s “thou knowest” uses this same root, joining recognition of expertise with the expertise itself.
daʿat: knowledge
דַּעַת
In 1 Kings 7:14, this branch names the knowledge used to work brass, showing how knowing and skilled making belong together.
THE PATTERN
Shared work advances when distinct abilities are recognized as knowledge the whole work needs.
He has filled them with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work, of the carver, and of the designer, and of the embroiderer, in blue, and in purple, in scarlet, and fine linen, and of the weaver, even of those who do any work, and of those who devise designs.Do you see a man swift in his work? He stands before kings; he does not stand before the darkened ones.The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.THE THREAD
He was a widow's son of the branch of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a carver in bronze. And he was filled with craft, and with discernment, and with perception to work every work in bronze. And he came to king Solomon, and did all his work.The word behind “cunning” here is דַּעַת (daʿat, knowledge), from the same root as “can skill” in the cedar verse. Cedar cutting and brasswork are both knowledge expressed through craft, each contributing to the larger work.
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