What Does 1 Kings 2:31 Mean in the King James?
And the king said unto him, Do as he hath said, and fall upon him, and bury him; that thou mayest take away the innocent blood, which Joab shed, from me, and from the house of my father.
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 verse names a new killing as the means of lifting blood shed without cause from a royal house.
THE MEANING
Blood poured out without cause reaches beyond the hand that spills it: the king names himself and his father’s house as bearing it. He seeks to remove that burden through another killing. The verse keeps the violence visible inside its language of removal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that bloodshed burdens only the hand that spills it: the king names himself and his father’s house as bearing the blood.
THE ROOT
חִנָּם
ḥinnām
GROWS FROM
חנם
ḥ-n-m
For nothing, freely, without cause.
The phrase behind “innocent blood” is literally “bloods of ḥinnām”, blood poured out for nothing, without cause. The word makes the injustice concrete as gratuitous, while the sentence places its burden on the king and his father’s house.
ALSO GROWS
ḥinnām: Gratuitously, with no cause or provocation.
חִנָּם
Psalm 35:19 uses the same word for hatred without cause, echoing the verse’s sense of unjustly poured blood.
ḥinnām: For nothing, without payment.
חִנָּם
Genesis 29:15 uses the same word for work without compensation, showing its range from without cause to without price.
וַהֲסִירֹתָ
wa-hăsîrōtā
GROWS FROM
סור
sûr
Turn aside, depart, withdraw; in this causative form, remove or cause to depart.
“take away” in this verse is wa-hăsîrōtā. Hebrew says the blood is removed “from upon” the king and his father’s house, treating bloodshed as a burden borne there. This act of removal is sought through a killing, keeping the violence inside the cleansing image.
ALSO GROWS
sûr: Turn aside or depart from a way or place.
סוּר
The base movement is away from a place or direction; here that movement is applied to blood resting upon a household.
hēsîr: Cause something to depart; remove it.
הֵסִיר
This causative form makes removal active, matching the stated aim of lifting the blood from the king and his father’s house.
THE PATTERN
Bloodshed reaches beyond the killer and leaves a burden on the land and community that outward disavowal cannot simply wash away.
So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.THE THREAD
Thine eye shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with thee.This verse pairs innocent blood with its removal, naming Israel as the body from which the bloodguilt is put away. Its surrounding command states the violent remedy plainly, making explicit the cost compressed into the king’s order.
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