What Does 1 Kings 6:31 Mean?
And for the entering of the innermost room he made doors of olive tree; the lintel and side posts were a fifth of the wall.
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 for the entering of the oracle he made doors of olive tree: the lintel and side posts were a fifth part of the wall.THE KEY
What English calls an “oracle” may carry the Hebrew idea of a speaking-place, so the doorway leads into a room associated with speech.
THE MEANING
The inner room comes into view as a speaking-place, but the way into it remains a measured threshold: olive wood forms the doors, and their frame occupies a fifth of the wall. You stand at an entrance where inwardness is held within the surrounding structure.
THE ROOT
דְּבִיר
dəvīr
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
To speak, declare; word or matter.
“innermost room” in this verse is dəvīr. The word for the innermost sanctuary, דְּבִיר (dəvīr, inner sanctuary or oracle), is often associated with the root for speaking. That link lets the room be heard as a place of speech as well as a hidden chamber.
ALSO GROWS
dibbēr: spoke; speak
דִּבֵּר
This speaking verb shares the root, making the possible speech association in “oracle” visible.
dābār: word, matter, thing
דָּבָר
The word or matter branch connects the inner chamber with what is spoken there.
שָׁמֶן
shemen
GROWS FROM
ש־מ־ן
Oil; fatness or richness.
The Hebrew phrase is literally “trees of oil,” עֲצֵי שָׁמֶן (ʿaṣê šemen), an expression for olive trees. English preserves the tree while losing the oil-word, leaving the material’s oil-bearing identity less visible.
ALSO GROWS
shemen: oil
שֶׁמֶן
This is the word embedded in the Hebrew phrase for the olive timber forming the doorway.
shāmen: fat, rich
שָׁמֵן
The same root’s sense of richness shades the oil-word without turning the wood into an abstract symbol.
THE PATTERN
Scripture marks access to its innermost spaces with a formed threshold held within a larger whole.
And you shall hang up the veil under the taches, so that you may bring in there, within the veil, the ark of the testimony; and the veil shall divide for you between the set-apart place and the most set-apart place.I am the door. Through me, if anyone enters, he shall be delivered, and shall go in and out, and shall find pasture.THE THREAD
Hear and respond to the voice of my pleas for favor, when I cry out to you, when I lift up my hands toward your set-apart innermost room.Psalm 28:2 uses the same Hebrew noun דְּבִיר (dəvīr, inner sanctuary or oracle), turning this chamber toward a voice raised in prayer. The shared word links the hidden room with a place oriented toward speech and hearing.
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