What Does 1 Kings 7:11 Mean?
And above were heavy stones, after the measures of hewn stones, and cedars.
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 above were costly stones, after the measures of hewed stones, and cedars.THE KEY
The word for “costly” also carries the sense of what is precious and esteemed, and here that worth takes a measured form.
THE MEANING
Above are costly stones measured to match the hewn stones, alongside cedar. Preciousness takes shape within a measured design; the materials belong to a structure, not apart from it.
THE ROOT
יְקָרוֹת
yeqarot
GROWS FROM
יקר
To be precious, costly, or esteemed.
“heavy” in this verse is yeqarot. The root holds cost and preciousness together: what is costly is also what is valued. Here, that value is part of a larger, measured structure.
ALSO GROWS
yaqar: Precious, costly, esteemed.
יָקָר
It shows the value carried by the stones is expressed in more than price alone.
yeqarah: Precious, valuable.
יְקָרָה
The same root describes what is esteemed as precious, linking these building stones to value held beyond their material.
גָּזִית
gazit
GROWS FROM
גזז
To cut off or shear; here, cut stone.
“hewn stones” in this verse is gazit. The word carries the act of cutting in its root. The stone’s place in the structure begins with material shaped by removal.
ALSO GROWS
gazaz: To shear or cut off.
גָּזַז
It makes visible the cutting contained in the word for hewn stone.
gez: Fleece shorn from an animal.
גֵּז
Like hewn stone, it names material after something has been cut away.
מִדּוֹת
middot
GROWS FROM
מדד
To measure.
The measures give the costly stones a relationship to the hewn stones: their value is set within shared dimensions. The verse presents worth and proportion together.
ALSO GROWS
madad: To measure.
מָדַד
It names the action behind the dimensions that shape the stones’ relation to one another.
middah: Measure, size, or portion.
מִדָּה
It shows that a stone’s place in the design is shaped by its proportion.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling takes shape as its materials are prepared and brought into a fitting whole.
And the house, when it was in building, was built of whole stone, made ready before it was brought there, so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was in building.In whom the whole building, joined at the joints, grows into a set-apart temple in the Lord.You also, as living stones, are built up into a house of breath, a set-apart priesthood, to carry up sacrifices of breath, well received by God through Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
She is more precious than rubies, and nothing you long for can be made equal to her.“Precious” in Proverbs and “costly” here share the Hebrew root יקר (yaqar), meaning precious or esteemed. The shared root lets the stones’ cost carry the added sense of what is deeply valued.
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