What Does 1 Kings 18:40 Mean in the King James?
And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.
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 verb translated “slew” is also used for slaughtering offerings, so its ritual vocabulary remains audible in this killing.
THE MEANING
Here, “let not one escape” means exactly what the verse says: the prophets are seized and killed. The religious conflict reaches human bodies and ends in their deaths. The text leaves that violence visible as you read it now.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁחָטֵם
wayyishchatem
GROWS FROM
ש־ח־ט
sh-ḥ-ṭ
To slaughter or kill; commonly used for animal slaughter, including sacrificial slaughter.
“slew” in this verse is wayyishchatem. The verb שָׁחַט (shāḥaṭ, to slaughter) is also used for slaughtering sacrificial animals. Here the same root names the killing of people, carrying the vocabulary of slaughter into the verse’s religious conflict.
ALSO GROWS
lishchot: To slaughter.
לִשְׁחֹט
In Genesis 22:10, this verb describes Abraham raising the knife to slay his son, making the shared root’s human cost plain.
wə-shāḥaṭ: And he shall slaughter.
וְשָׁחַט
In Leviticus 1:5, the same root describes slaughtering a bullock for an offering, showing the ritual use of the word.
THE PATTERN
Biblical judgment scenes can portray rival worship’s agents being removed through bodily destruction.
And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.And it came to pass, as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, Go in, and slay them; let none come forth. And they smote them with the edge of the sword; and the guard and the captains cast them out, and went to the city of the house of Baal.And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.THE THREAD
And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.Genesis 22:10 uses the same root, שָׁחַט (shāḥaṭ, to slaughter), as Elijah’s killing of the prophets. The shared verb holds an interrupted killing and a completed one inside a single word.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us