What Does 1 Kings 7:24 Mean?
And under the lip of it, all around, there were buds going around the sea, ten to a forearm. The buds were poured in two rows, when it was poured.
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 under the brim of it round about there were knops compassing it, ten in a cubit, compassing the sea round about: the knops were cast in two rows, when it was cast.THE KEY
The “knops” are gourds: the same Hebrew word names the basin’s ornaments and wild gourds growing in a field.
THE MEANING
The verse places two cast rows of gourd-shaped forms below the basin’s lip. The Hebrew word for these ornaments also names wild gourds elsewhere, so the crafted edge carries a form found in living growth.
THE ROOT
פְּקָעִים
peqa’im
GROWS FROM
פקע
p-q-ʿ
Gourd; here, a gourd-shaped ornament.
“buds” in this verse is peqa’im. English “knops” makes these sound like generic knobs, while the Hebrew belongs to the word-family for gourds. The same word-family describes ornament carved into the temple and wild gourds gathered from a field.
ALSO GROWS
peqa’im: Gourd-shaped ornaments
פְּקָעִים
The same form appears among the carvings inside the house in 1 Kings 6:18.
paqqu’ot: Wild gourds
פַּקֻּעֹת
This related form names the fruit gathered from a wild vine in 2 Kings 4:39.
שְׂפָתוֹ
sephato
GROWS FROM
שפה
sh-p-h
Lip or edge; the same word also means language.
Hebrew calls the vessel’s rim its “lip,” using the same noun that can mean language. The word gives the basin’s boundary a bodily name without making it speak.
ALSO GROWS
safah: Lip; edge or rim
שָׂפָה
This is the sense used for the basin’s brim.
safah: Language
שָׂפָה
The same noun names language, joining the meanings of lip and speech in one Hebrew word.
THE PATTERN
Sacred furnishings carry plant forms in their repeated ornament.
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.THE THREAD
And one went out to the field to gather greens, and found a wild vine, and gathered from it wild gourds until his garment was full, and came and cut them into the pot of stew. For they did not know them.The “wild gourds” are פַּקֻּעֹת (paqqu’ot), the same word-family as the basin’s פְּקָעִים (peqa’im), its gourd-shaped ornaments. One verse names carved forms around a vessel; the other names fruit gathered from a field.
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