What Does 1 Kings 14:14 Mean in the King James?
Moreover the LORD shall raise him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day: but what? even now.
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 act that makes a new king stand sets a dynasty’s severing in motion, and “even now” brings that rupture close.
THE MEANING
The LORD raises a king over Israel, and that king cuts Jeroboam’s house off; the verse holds establishment and destruction together. “That day” is followed by “even now,” making the severing feel immediate rather than remote. A standing order is not therefore a permanent one.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an established family line or political order is safe simply because it still stands.
THE ROOT
יַכְרִית
yakhrit
GROWS FROM
כרת
Cut, sever, or cut off.
This root also appears in the Hebrew phrase “cut a covenant,” so its language can mark a binding relation as well as a severing. Here its force is violent and dynastic: a household line is cut off, not merely displaced.
ALSO GROWS
karat: To cut; used with “covenant” in the phrase “cut a covenant.”
כָּרַת
The covenant phrase shows how this root can mark a bond; here the same root names a household’s severance.
nikrat: To be cut off or severed.
נִכְרַת
This form makes the severing something a line undergoes, illuminating the force of cutting off a house.
הֵקִים
heqim
GROWS FROM
קום
Rise or stand; in the causative form, make stand or establish.
“raise up” in this verse is heqim. The form here is causative: the LORD makes a king stand over Israel. The same root gives מָקוֹם (maqom), “place,” linking the act of raising someone to the position they occupy.
ALSO GROWS
qum: To rise or stand.
קוּם
This is the root’s basic motion, made causative here as someone is set up to rule.
maqom: A place or position; a “standing place.”
מָקוֹם
The king is raised into a position over Israel, not merely brought into view.
THE PATTERN
The authority that raises rulers also governs when their place or power ends.
The LORD maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up.And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.THE THREAD
In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:The Hebrew verb behind “cut off” shares the root כרת (karat) with the phrase translated “made a covenant” here. The root’s cutting can mark a binding relation or a severance; in the current verse, it is the house’s continuity that is severed.
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