What Does 1 Kings 7:22 Mean?
And upon the top of the pillars was lily work; so was the work of the pillars finished.
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 upon the top of the pillars was lily work: so was the work of the pillars finished.THE KEY
The pillars are not complete when they merely stand; they are complete when their crowns bloom.
THE MEANING
The pillars reach completion with lily-shaped work at their crowns: the supporting form is finished in a blossom. Strength and delicacy meet at the top, where the work flowers.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that a structure is finished as soon as it can stand; here, completion includes the flowering form at its crown.
THE ROOT
וַתִּתַּם
vattittam
GROWS FROM
תמם
t-m-m
To be complete, whole, or brought to its end.
The word translated “finished” comes from a root that also names wholeness and integrity. The pillars’ completion is more than the end of construction: their whole form includes the lily-shaped crown.
ALSO GROWS
tamim: Whole, complete, sound; also translated “perfect.”
תָּמִים
This branch shows the root can describe a whole person as well as completed work.
tom: Integrity, completeness.
תֹּם
It shows that completion can name a condition of wholeness, not only the stopping point of a task.
THE PATTERN
Scripture carries forms of living growth into crafted sacred spaces.
And you make a lampstand of clean gold; of hammered work is the lampstand made, its trunk, its stalks, its cups, its knobs, and its blossoms, all of one piece.And the cedar of the house within was carved with gourds and opened blossoms; all was cedar; no stone was seen.And why are you pulled apart over clothing? Learn from the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not toil, nor do they spin.THE THREAD
These are the births of Noah. Noah was an aligned man, and whole in his generations, and Noah walked with God.The word translated “perfect” is תָּמִים (tamim), “whole, complete,” from the same root תמם (t-m-m) as “finished” here. The shared root lets the pillars’ completion and Noah’s integrity meet in the idea of wholeness.
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