What Does 1 Kings 11:1 Mean in the King James?
But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites;
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 same Hebrew word names Solomon’s love here and whole-hearted love of God, so the hidden issue is where love is directed.
THE MEANING
This verse sets before you love with a direction and a scale: the king’s affection reaches across many peoples and gathers many bonds close. The women are marked as foreign, while the line centers the king’s choice to love them. It makes visible that attachment is more than a feeling; it joins the heart to what it draws near.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that love is only a private feeling without direction: the many attachments named here raise the question of what they draw the heart toward.
THE ROOT
וַיֶּאֱהַב
wayyeʾehav
GROWS FROM
אהב
To love, desire, or attach oneself by affection.
“loved” in this verse is wayyeʾehav. Hebrew uses this same root for the king’s love here and the command to love the LORD with the whole heart. The word itself does not determine the object of love; the passage’s tension lies in what these many attachments draw the heart toward.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāhav: To love; love
אָהַב
The same verb names Solomon’s affection and the love of God commanded in Deuteronomy 6:5, showing that the root’s meaning depends in part on where love is directed.
ʾahavah: Love; affection
אַהֲבָה
This related noun makes love visible as an attachment that can gather around an object, not merely a passing preference.
נָכְרִיּוֹת
nokhriyyot
GROWS FROM
נכר
To recognize or distinguish; to be marked as foreign.
The word translated “strange” identifies these women as foreign, not as odd or unfamiliar in personality. The verse holds distance and intimacy together: they are marked as outsiders, yet drawn near through the king’s love.
ALSO GROWS
nokhrî: Foreigner; foreign
נָכְרִי
This related form makes clear that “strange” refers to foreignness, giving the verse’s list of peoples its force.
hikkîr: Recognize; identify
הִכִּיר
The shared root connects foreignness with being distinguished as other: these women are named by the boundary that separates them from the king’s people.
THE PATTERN
Love gathers the heart toward what it takes as its object.
And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.THE THREAD
And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.The Hebrew verb for “love” is from the same root in both verses. That shared word leaves the question of love’s direction in view: the heart can give its whole attachment to different objects.
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