What Does 1 Kings 9:13 Mean?
And he said, "What are these cities which you have given me, my brother?" And he called them the land of Cabul until this day.
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 he said, What cities are these which thou hast given me, my brother? And he called them the land of Cabul unto this day.THE KEY
The receiver’s name for the gift can outlast the giver’s act of giving.
THE MEANING
Giving places something into another’s hands, but the receiver’s name for it exposes the quality actually encountered. Cabul is commonly glossed “good-for-nothing,” though its derivation is uncertain, so the name holds the distance between being given something and finding it valuable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being given something does not prove that it is good or useful to the one who receives it.
THE ROOT
נָתַתָּ
natatta
GROWS FROM
נתן
natan
Give; put, set, or place.
The verb rendered “given” carries the sense of putting or placing, so the cities are set into another’s hands. Its word family includes both a gift and people assigned to service, showing that giving can establish an ongoing relation, not only a moment of transfer.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: Gift, present.
מַתָּנָה
This branch names what is placed into someone’s possession; Hiram receives cities as a gift, even as his naming reveals how he judges them.
nethinim: Given ones; people assigned to service at the sanctuary.
נְתִינִים
This branch describes people defined by being placed in service, showing how giving can establish a continuing role.
וַיִּקְרָא
vayyiqra
GROWS FROM
קרא
qara
Call out, summon, or proclaim.
The root behind “called” also gives words for public reading and assembly. Naming the cities therefore carries the force of a declared appraisal, not only a private label.
ALSO GROWS
qeri'ah: Calling; reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
This branch joins calling with spoken reading, echoing the act of giving the land a name aloud.
miqra: Public reading; convocation.
מִקְרָא
This branch carries the root into a public gathering or proclamation, reinforcing that a name can make an appraisal heard.
THE PATTERN
A name can make the nature or perceived quality of a thing visible.
And out of the ground the LORD God shaped every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them, and whatever Adam called every living soul, that was its name.Let not my lord, I beg you, set his heart on this man of worthlessness, Nabal, the withering one. For as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and withering is with him. But I, your handmaid, did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent.And she will bring forth a son, and you will call his name Jesus, the LORD's deliverance, for he will deliver his people from their missing.THE THREAD
And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat, for his house to eat, and twenty measures of beaten oil; thus Solomon gave to Hiram year by year.The Hebrew root נתן (natan, give, set, place) appears in both verses for what Solomon puts into Hiram’s keeping. Here it is recurring food and oil; in 1 Kings 9:13 the cities are also placed in Hiram’s hands, and his name for them records how the gift lands with him.
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