What Does 1 Kings 12:1 Mean in the King James?
And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king.
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
They gather to make a king at Shechem, whose name carries “shoulder”: kingship arrives as a weight borne in common.
THE MEANING
Authority takes shape through a shared act: all Israel gathers to make Rehoboam king. His title becomes public through the people’s participation, placing power within a relationship between ruler and people.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a ruler’s authority belongs to him alone is unsettled here: the people participate in the act that makes him king.
THE ROOT
לְהַמְלִיךְ
lehamlikh
GROWS FROM
מלך
m-l-k
rule, reign, be king
“make him king” in this verse is lehamlikh. The verb here means to cause someone to be king. The same root names a king, the act of reigning, and a kingdom, showing rule as something this gathering actively brings into being.
ALSO GROWS
melekh: king
מֶלֶךְ
This noun names the role the people enact for Rehoboam.
malakh: reign; become king
מָלַךְ
This verb shows kingship as an action, not only a title.
mamlakhah: kingdom
מַמְלָכָה
The realm itself grows from the same root as the people’s act of making a king.
שְׁכֶם
Shekhem
GROWS FROM
שכם
sh-k-m
shoulder, upper back
Shechem shares its form with the Hebrew word for shoulder. As the people gather there to make a king, the place-name lends the scene an image of kingship as a weight borne among them.
ALSO GROWS
shekhem: shoulder; upper back
שְׁכֶם
This body-word is the sense carried by the place-name.
Shekhem: Shechem, a place-name commonly understood as “shoulder”
שְׁכֶם
The name lets the setting echo the image of bearing as the people enact kingship.
THE PATTERN
Public kingship takes shape when a gathered people recognize and enact it.
And Samuel said to all the people, See ye him whom the LORD hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people? And all the people shouted, and said, God save the king.So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron; and king David made a league with them in Hebron before the LORD: and they anointed David king over Israel.Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.THE THREAD
And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.The same מלך (m-l-k) root appears in the request to make a king and in the act of making Rehoboam king. The shared root joins the desire for rule to the people’s enactment of it.
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