What Does 1 Kings 7:30 Mean?
And every stand had four bronze wheels, and plates of bronze. And the four corners had shoulders. Under the basin were shoulders poured, at the side of every hanging.
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 every base had four brasen wheels, and plates of brass: and the four corners thereof had undersetters: under the laver were undersetters molten, at the side of every addition.THE KEY
The basin’s supports are called “shoulders,” making stability a load-bearing form built into what moves.
THE MEANING
A basin rests on a wheeled bronze base, held by cast supports beneath it. Its weight and its movement belong together: the support is built into the structure that carries it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse loosens the assumption that something must be fixed in place to be supported: this basin travels on wheels because its weight is carried by supports built into the base.
THE ROOT
כְּתֵפֹת
ketefot
GROWS FROM
כתף
k-t-p
Shoulder: the load-bearing side of the body.
The word translated “undersetters” is literally “shoulders.” English hides the bodily image: the basin is steadied by supports whose name carries the sense of bearing weight.
ALSO GROWS
shoulder: The body’s load-bearing side.
כָּתֵף
The cast supports beneath the basin bear its weight, like a shoulder beneath a load.
shoulder-pieces: Shoulder supports on a garment.
כְּתֵפֹת
The same word names the ephod’s shoulder-pieces, connecting built support with the body’s own bearing form.
מְכוֹנָה
mekhonah
GROWS FROM
כון
k-w-n
To be firm or established; to set in place.
“stand” in this verse is mekhonah. The word for the base grows from the language of being established, yet this base is mounted on wheels. The verse holds steadiness and movement together in one structure.
ALSO GROWS
establish: To set firm or establish.
כּוּן
This verb is the seed beneath the word for base: the fixture steadies what it carries.
place: An established place or dwelling.
מָכוֹן
The base and the place share the language of establishment, even as this base is designed to move.
THE PATTERN
A structure carries weight through supports fitted to its load, whether it sits, moves, or grows.
But Moses' hands were heavy. And they took a stone and set it under him, and he sat upon it. And Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on this side and the other on that side, and his hands were steady until the sun went down.The earth and all who settle in it are melting; I have set its pillars firm. Selah.from whom the whole body, joined together and knit by every joint that supplies, according to the working in the measure of each part, makes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.THE THREAD
And you will set the two stones on the shoulders of the ephod, as stones of remembrance for the children of Israel, and Aaron will carry their names before the LORD on his two shoulders, for a remembrance.The supports beneath the basin are כְּתֵפֹת (ketefot, “shoulders”), the same Hebrew word used here for the ephod’s shoulder-pieces. One structure bears a basin; the other bears names, and in both, the shoulder is the form that carries weight.
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