What Does 2 Samuel 5:14 Mean?
And these are the names of those born to him in Jerusalem, Shammua, and Shobab, Nathan, and Solomon.
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 these be the names of those that were born unto him in Jerusalem; Shammua, and Shobab, and Nathan, and Solomon,THE KEY
Solomon is born in Jerusalem, and both names carry the same root of wholeness: the place and the child echo one another.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks as more than a family record: the births are located in Jerusalem, whose name carries shalom, and among them Solomon bears that same wholeness in his name. The reader encounters life as received and named within wholeness, with meaning held inside the names themselves.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the assumption that this passage is only a list of labels: Solomon’s name repeats the wholeness carried by Jerusalem.
THE ROOT
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shlomo
GROWS FROM
שלם
š-l-m
To be whole or complete.
Solomon’s name grows from the same root as shalom, wholeness. Jerusalem also carries that sound, so the verse places a child whose name bears wholeness inside a city whose name bears it too.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
This is the quality echoed in Solomon’s name and in Jerusalem’s name.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes visible the root sense carried by shalom and Solomon’s name.
נָתָן
Nathan
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
Nathan’s name is formed from the Hebrew verb for giving. In a list of births, that name makes receiving a child and giving a name part of the same language.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
The name itself carries the action of giving into the family record.
mattanah: A gift.
מַתָּנָה
This related word shows the root’s movement from giving to what is given.
שַׁמּוּעַ
Shammua
GROWS FROM
שמע
š-m-ʿ
To hear or listen.
Shammua carries the sense of being heard. English preserves the name’s sound but leaves its hearing-root hidden among the other names.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: To hear or listen.
שָׁמַע
This verb is the seed of Shammua’s name.
shemuah: A report or tidings.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch shows how the root of hearing also gives rise to what is heard and carried onward.
THE PATTERN
Scripture lets names carry a nature into a life, making identity part of the story’s meaning.
No longer shall your name be called Abram, but Abraham, father of multitudes, for I have set you as a father of many nations.And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, the one drawn out, and she said, Because from the waters I drew him out.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
Behold, a son shall be born to you, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about, for his name shall be Solomon, wholeness, and I will give wholeness and stillness to Israel in his days.This verse states directly what 2 Samuel leaves encoded: Solomon’s name shares its root with shalom, wholeness. The birth list places that name in Jerusalem, and this verse makes the connection between Solomon and peace explicit.
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