What Does 1 Kings 12:22 Mean in the King James?
But the word of God came unto Shemaiah the man of God, saying,
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 Hebrew word davar can mean both “word” and “matter,” so what arrives is not merely an idea but an address entering someone’s life.
THE MEANING
This verse presents God’s word as something that arrives to a particular person and gives itself as speech. Shemaiah’s name carries the sense “Yah has heard,” so speaking and hearing meet within one line. For you now, the text presents divine address as personal and present, not abstract.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that God’s word is only an idea: here it arrives as an address to a person.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
dāḇār
GROWS FROM
דבר
Speak, utter.
English “word” can sound like a detached unit of speech, but Hebrew davar can also mean a matter, affair, or event. The word that arrives is a spoken address that enters what is happening.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke; to speak.
דִּבֶּר
This verb shares the root and makes the speaking within davar audible: the word is an act of address.
davar: Matter, affair, or thing; also word or speech.
דָּבָר
The noun’s wider sense joins what is spoken with the matter it addresses.
שְׁמַעְיָהוּ
Shema‘yahu
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed; hearing can carry the sense of responding.
Shemaiah is commonly understood as “Yah has heard.” His name’s hearing-root meets the arriving davar: this line joins speech with a hearer.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: Hear, listen, heed.
שָׁמַע
The name’s root makes hearing central to the moment when the word arrives.
shemuʿah: Report, tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This related noun shows the same root moving from hearing to a message received.
THE PATTERN
God’s word is a living address: it comes to hearers and acts within what it reaches.
Then came the word of the LORD unto Samuel, saying,Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.The word translated “word” here is the same Hebrew davar found in 1 Kings 12:22. In one verse davar arrives to Shemaiah; in the other, the heavens are made through it, revealing the word as active address rather than information alone.
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