What Does 1 Kings 2:21 Mean in the King James?
And she said, Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah thy brother 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 passive “be given” makes Abishag’s future sound transferable while concealing who would transfer it.
THE MEANING
The wording lets you hear how a request can turn a person’s future into something assigned by others: Abishag is the one to be given, while the giver stays unnamed. Adonijah’s name (אֲדֹנִיָּה, ʾĂḏōniyyāh, “YHWH is my Lord”) places a declaration of lordship beside a request that carries status. The next verse names the kingdom plainly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A marriage request is necessarily private and apolitical; the next verse makes the kingdom claim visible.
THE ROOT
יֻתַּן
yuttan
GROWS FROM
נתן
To give, put, set, or place.
“given” in this verse is yuttan. The Hebrew uses a passive form of נָתַן (natan, “to give or place”): Abishag is grammatically the recipient of someone else’s decision. The same root carries both giving and placing, so the phrase holds a transfer and an assignment of position together.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, put, or place.
נָתַן
The verse’s “be given” is a passive form of this verb, making the transfer clear while leaving the giver unnamed.
mattanah: Gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This branch shows the root’s familiar language of giving; here, that language is applied to a woman’s future and marriage.
THE PATTERN
The language of giving exposes whether a person is being transferred by someone else or chooses to give themselves.
And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.And she said, Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah thy brother to wife.Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;THE THREAD
And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.Both verses use נתן (natan, “give or place”) to describe a woman being assigned into marriage by someone else. The shared root makes the repeated structure visible: the woman is the one acted upon, while another person makes the arrangement.
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