What Does 1 Kings 2:17 Mean in the King James?
And he said, Speak, I pray thee, unto Solomon the king, (for he will not say thee nay,) that he give me Abishag the Shunammite to wife.
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 hides a face turning away inside “say thee nay,” so the request arrives with Solomon’s refusal already ruled out.
THE MEANING
A plea can arrive with its expected answer already spoken: “he will not say thee nay.” The Hebrew pictures refusal as a face turned back, while the request asks that Abishag be “given” as a wife; confidence and transfer sit together in the same sentence. The request sounds settled before the person at its center has spoken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a request is harmless because the person asked is expected to say yes.
THE ROOT
יָשִׁיב
yashiv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
Turn back; return.
“refuse” in this verse is yashiv. The verse’s “say thee nay” is pictured in Hebrew as turning your face back. Refusal is not only a spoken answer; it is a turning away from the person asking.
ALSO GROWS
meshubah: Backsliding; turning away.
מְשׁוּבָה
This branch shows the same turning motion in the opposite direction from return: a person can turn away rather than toward.
teshuvah: Return; turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
The root holds both withdrawal and return, so the face turned away in refusal belongs to the same motion as turning back toward someone.
יִתֶּן
yitten
GROWS FROM
נָתַן
natan
Give; set or place.
“give” in this verse is yitten. The root carries the sense of setting or placing as well as giving. Here the request makes Abishag the one to be placed into a marriage, while the requester is the one who receives.
ALSO GROWS
nathun: Given; set or placed.
נָתוּן
This form makes the root’s sense of placement audible in the request for Abishag to be given as a wife.
mattanah: Gift.
מַתָּנָה
The gift branch exposes the transfer language inside a request about a person and a marriage.
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shelomoh
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
sh-l-m
Be whole or complete; wholeness.
Solomon’s name carries the root of shalom, wholeness. Beside a request that positions Abishag within another person’s claim, that name adds a quiet tension between wholeness and an arrangement made over someone.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch is the nature carried in Solomon’s name.
shalem: Whole; complete.
שָׁלֵם
The adjective gives the name’s root a quality of completeness that stands beside the request’s unresolved human stakes.
THE PATTERN
A plea is received or refused through the image of a face turned toward or away from the one asking.
For if ye turn again unto the LORD, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land: for the LORD your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him.Hide not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.THE THREAD
For if ye turn again unto the LORD, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land: for the LORD your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him.The same root that pictures Solomon refusing by turning a face back also appears in the promise that the LORD will not turn his face away. One root holds both motions: a face can turn away from a plea, or remain turned toward the one who returns.
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