What Does 1 Kings 7:48 Mean?
And Solomon made all the vessels that pertained unto the house of the LORD, the altar of gold, and the table of gold, upon which was the bread of the faces.
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 Solomon made all the vessels that pertained unto the house of the LORD: the altar of gold, and the table of gold, whereupon the shewbread was,THE KEY
The LORD’s house is furnished around a table as well as an altar, making provision part of the visible shape of divine presence.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s house places a table beside the altar, so sacred presence meets the reader through a tangible place for bread as well as worship. The bread of the faces makes provision visible in the space before God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that divine presence belongs only to the invisible: the house of the LORD includes a table bearing bread before God’s face.
THE ROOT
שֻׁלְחָן
shulchan
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send, send forth, release, stretch out.
Shulchan sits in the root family of shalach, to send or stretch out. The table carries the image of provision extended into reach, fitting its place bearing bread in the LORD’s house.
ALSO GROWS
shalach: Send forth, release, stretch out the hand.
שָׁלַח
The table’s root carries the movement of extending what can be received.
Shiloach: Sent; the name of the waters of Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
The sent waters echo the root’s movement of something extended outward to restore.
shaliach: A sent one, a messenger.
שָׁלִיחַ
This branch shows the root’s wider pattern of something being sent forth.
לֶחֶם הַפָּנִים
lechem ha-panim
GROWS FROM
פנה
Turn, face toward.
Hebrew calls this lechem ha-panim, “bread of the faces.” Panim grows from panah, to turn or face toward, picturing the bread before a face: provision held in presence rather than an abstraction.
ALSO GROWS
panim: Face, faces; by extension, presence.
פָּנִים
The phrase names the bread by the faces before which it is placed.
panah: Turn, face toward.
פָּנָה
This verb gives presence a direction: a face turns toward what is set before it.
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shelomoh
GROWS FROM
שלם
Be whole, complete, intact.
Solomon’s Hebrew name, Shelomoh, shares the root of shalom, wholeness. As he furnishes the LORD’s house, the name’s root resonates with a dwelling made complete through its vessels and provision.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
This is the root family embedded in Solomon’s name.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
The furnishings resonate with the name’s sense of completion as the house is equipped.
THE PATTERN
The sanctuary makes provision visible by keeping bread before the divine presence.
And you set upon the table the bread of the face before me always.Every sabbath he shall arrange it before the LORD continually, taken from the children of Israel by a covenant of the ages.For a tent is built, the first one, in which are the lampstand, the table, and the loaves laid out, which is called the set-apart place.THE THREAD
And you set upon the table the bread of the face before me always.Exodus uses the same Hebrew word, שֻׁלְחָן (shulchan), for the table and places the shewbread before God continually. The shared wording reveals this golden furnishing as part of an ongoing pattern of provision held in the divine presence.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us