What Does 1 Kings 15:21 Mean in the King James?
And it came to pass, when Baasha heard thereof, that he left off building of Ramah, and dwelt in Tirzah.
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 closing וַיֵּשֶׁב (vayyēshev, “and he dwelt”) comes from יָשַׁב (yashav, “sit/dwell”), making the halt in construction resolve into Baasha’s act of taking a place.
THE MEANING
Ramah (הָרָמָה, hā-Rāmāh, “the height”) names where construction stops; Tirzah (תִּרְצָה, Tirtsah, “pleasing/delight”) names where Baasha settles. The verse speaks now to the moment when a report closes one undertaking and shifts someone toward a new place of residence.
THE ROOT
וַיֵּשֶׁב
vayyēshev
GROWS FROM
ישב
Sit down; dwell, settle in a place.
English gives “dwelt,” while the Hebrew root also carries sitting down: residence is pictured as taking a seat in a place. Baasha’s final movement is a settling in Tirzah after the work stops.
ALSO GROWS
yāshav: To sit down; to dwell or inhabit.
יָשַׁב
The base form holds the bodily act of sitting and the settled state of residence in one word family.
yōshēv: One sitting; an inhabitant or resident.
יֹשֵׁב
The same root names a person by being seated or settled in a place.
וַיֶּחְדַּל
vayyeḥdal
GROWS FROM
חדל
Cease, stop, desist.
“left off” in this verse is vayyeḥdal. The verb חדל names a real cessation or desisting, making the abandoned construction an active break in motion. The following act of settling in Tirzah shows how stopping one undertaking can coincide with taking up residence elsewhere.
ALSO GROWS
ḥādal: He ceased or stopped.
חָדַל
This form makes the root’s basic force concrete: an action comes to an end.
teḥdal: You shall cease or stop.
תֶּחְדַּל
The same root describes cessation as an action that can be directed or expected.
תִּרְצָה
Tirtsah
GROWS FROM
רצה
Be pleased; show favor; find acceptable.
Tirzah’s name is linked with what is pleasing or accepted, giving Baasha’s destination a quiet echo of delight. The name marks the place’s nature without telling us Baasha’s motive or emotion.
ALSO GROWS
rāṣāh: To be pleased with; to show favor.
רָצָה
This verb shares the root’s consonants and gives the name its sense of pleasing or favor.
nirṣāh: To be accepted or found pleasing.
נִרְצָה
This form carries the same root into the idea of being received with favor.
THE PATTERN
A report or changed condition can halt work already underway and redirect the people carrying it.
So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.Then ceased the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem. So it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia,THE THREAD
I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in for ever.The phrase לְשִׁבְתְּךָ (leshivtekha, “for you to dwell”) uses the same root ישב (yashav, “sit/dwell”) as “dwelt” here. Solomon’s line joins building a place to dwelling in it; in this verse the building stops, while Baasha’s dwelling continues elsewhere.
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