What Does 1 Kings 10:3 Mean in the King James?
And Solomon told her all her questions: there was not any thing hid from the king, which he told her not.
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 repeated “told” makes wisdom an act of disclosure: every matter is brought into view until nothing remains hidden.
THE MEANING
Your questions can be spoken fully and met with answers that conceal nothing; wisdom appears as clarity without withholding. The verse pictures an exchange in which every matter brought forward receives an answer.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wisdom must keep some answers obscure to preserve its authority; here, understanding is shown by what it makes known.
THE ROOT
הִגִּיד
higgid
GROWS FROM
נגד
To be in front or conspicuous; in this verb form, to make something known by setting it before someone.
“told” in this verse is higgid. The Hebrew repeats this verb: Solomon makes her matters known, and nothing hidden remains that he did not make known to her. Its sense of bringing something in front lets disclosure feel spatial: what was concealed is set where it can be seen.
ALSO GROWS
neged: In front of, or opposite.
נֶגֶד
The spatial sense suggests that telling brings a matter into view.
nagid: Leader or ruler.
נָגִיד
The word belongs to the same root family as “told”; here, royal authority is expressed through making matters known.
דְּבָרֶיהָ
devarēhā
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; in this word family, speech and the matter or thing spoken of.
The KJV calls these “questions,” while the Hebrew word carries the sense of her words or matters. The root holds speaking and the matters spoken within one family, so the answer reaches every concern she brings into speech.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
It links what she asks with the matters she brings before Solomon.
dibber: To speak or utter.
דִּבֵּר
It connects her spoken concerns to the act of answering them.
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shelomoh
GROWS FROM
שלם
To be whole or complete.
Solomon’s name belongs to the same root family as shalom, wholeness. Beside the full telling in this verse, his name carries the language of completeness, with no matter left unanswered.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness or well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
It gives Solomon’s name its association with wholeness.
shalem: Whole or complete.
שָׁלֵם
It echoes the completeness of an answer that leaves nothing hidden.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom completes a question by bringing its matter into the open.
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad.THE THREAD
And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart.The previous verse uses the same Hebrew root as “her questions” here: she speaks everything in her heart, and those spoken matters are what Solomon then makes known. The movement is from a question voiced fully to an answer that leaves nothing hidden.
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