What Does 1 Kings 6:5 Mean?
And against the wall of the house he built side chambers round about, against the walls of the house round about, both of the temple and of the innermost room; and he made side chambers round about.
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 against the wall of the house he built chambers round about, against the walls of the house round about, both of the temple and of the oracle: and he made chambers round about:THE KEY
The final “chambers” translates צְלָעוֹת (tsela’ot), the same Hebrew word used for ribs and structural sides, so the temple’s surrounding rooms are named as its flanks.
THE MEANING
The sacred center is held within a surrounding structure, with rooms built along every side. The word behind the final “chambers” also names a rib or flank, letting the building’s architecture echo the body’s structure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This unsettles the idea that the sacred place is only its inner center: the verse gives its surrounding spaces a place in the house.
THE ROOT
צְלָעוֹת
tsela'ot
GROWS FROM
צלע
ṣ-l-ʿ
side, rib, or flank
“side chambers” in this verse is tsela'ot. The KJV’s “chambers” conceals a word also used for a rib and for the side of a structure. Here the temple’s surrounding rooms are named as flanks, bringing the language of anatomy into its architecture.
ALSO GROWS
tsēlāʿ: A rib or side of the body.
צֵלָע
Genesis 2:22 uses this word for the rib or side taken from the human, linking the temple’s side rooms to the body’s flank.
tselaʿ: The side of a structure.
צֶלַע
Exodus 26:20 uses the same word for the tabernacle’s side, showing how the root names architectural sides as well as bodily ones.
THE PATTERN
Scripture lets the body’s sides and a sanctuary’s sides illuminate one another, and can name a body itself as a temple.
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from Adam, he built into a woman, and brought her to Adam.And for the second side of the dwelling, on the north side, there shall be twenty boards.But he spoke of the temple of his body.THE THREAD
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from Adam, he built into a woman, and brought her to Adam.The Hebrew word translated “rib” in Genesis is the same noun that appears here as “chambers,” in its plural form. English separates anatomy from architecture; the shared root lets the temple’s side rooms echo the body’s flank.
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