What Does 1 Kings 10:27 Mean in the King James?
And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycomore trees that are in the vale, for abundance.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse measures abundance by the point at which the precious becomes ordinary, inside a city whose name carries wholeness.
THE MEANING
Silver lies in Jerusalem as commonly as stones, while cedars are as plentiful as sycomore trees in the vale. The verse presents abundance as a changed scale between ordinary and precious, gathering material fullness in a city whose name echoes completeness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that preciousness depends on rarity: silver remains silver, but here it is as common as stones.
THE ROOT
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
שלם (shalem): whole, complete; the root family of שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness).
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם (Yerushalayim, Jerusalem) carries the consonants of שלם (shalem, whole) and echoes שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness). Its dual ending suggests twofold wholeness, so the verse’s abundance gathers inside a place whose name already carries fullness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being
שָׁלוֹם
This branch gives the city’s name-nature its sense of wholeness, where the verse places its abundance.
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This adjective keeps the root’s sense of completeness visible in the consonants carried by Jerusalem.
רֹב
rov
GROWS FROM
רבה
רבה (ravah): become many, increase.
רֹב (rov, abundance) belongs to רבה (ravah, become many, increase): the verse gives plenty a scale so large that silver approaches the ordinary. Abundance appears as multiplication until the rare thing becomes common in the scene.
ALSO GROWS
rav: Great, many
רַב
This branch names the multitude that makes silver and cedar seem ordinary.
hirbah: Increased, made many
הִרְבָּה
This verb shows abundance as increase, the same movement expressed by the verse’s lavish comparisons.
נתן
natan
GROWS FROM
נתן
נתן (natan): give, set, place.
“made” in this verse is natan. The repeated נתן (natan, give, set, place) joins silver and cedar in one act of placement. Abundance is not an abstract number here; it takes shape as precious things set throughout Jerusalem.
ALSO GROWS
natan: Gave, set, placed
נָתַן
This is the verb-root behind the king’s action, framing the wealth as established in Jerusalem.
mattan: Gift
מַתָּן
This noun from the same root carries the sense of something given or placed into another’s hands.
THE PATTERN
Abundance makes precious materials ordinary within the place they fill.
And all king Solomon’s drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none were of silver: it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon.And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.THE THREAD
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,Genesis uses נתן (natan, set, place) for God setting the lights in the heavens, the same root that holds the king’s silver and cedars in Jerusalem. In both verses, what fills a place becomes visible through what is set there.
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