What Does 1 Kings 2:37 Mean in the King James?
For it shall be, that on the day thou goest out, and passest over the brook Kidron, thou shalt know for certain that thou shalt surely die: thy blood shall be upon thine own head.
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 makes one literal crossing the trigger of a death sentence, then places the blood on the threatened man’s own head.
THE MEANING
You hear a death threat with a precise trigger: crossing the brook makes the penalty certain. The repeated death wording presses that certainty, while “thy blood shall be upon thine own head” assigns liability to Shimei even as the ruler names the lethal condition.
THE ROOT
וְעָבַרְתָּ
ve’avarta
GROWS FROM
עבר
To cross, pass over, or go beyond.
“passest over” in this verse is ve’avarta. The Hebrew verb names a literal crossing from one side to another. Here that crossing is made the precise trigger for the death sentence, so the brook is a boundary charged by the ruler’s command.
ALSO GROWS
eber: Beyond; the other side.
עֵבֶר
The root carries the idea of crossing into what lies on the far side.
ma’avar: Passage; crossing.
מַעֲבָר
This branch names the passage itself, echoing the act that activates the threat.
מוֹת תָּמוּת
mōt tāmūt
GROWS FROM
מות
To die or perish.
The clause repeats the same death-root in an emphatic Hebrew construction: literally, “dying, you will die.” A causative branch of the root means “put to death,” keeping the human power behind this threat visible.
ALSO GROWS
māvet: Death.
מָוֶת
This noun makes explicit the outcome named in the warning.
hēmīt: Put to death; kill.
הֵמִית
This causative form keeps the possibility of an agent who brings about the death in view.
קִדְרוֹן
Qidrôn
GROWS FROM
קדר
To grow dark or become dusky; figuratively, to mourn.
“Kidron” in this verse is Qidrôn. The brook’s name is commonly connected to qādar, “grow dark,” a root also used figuratively for mourning. That name places a darkening echo beside the explicit death threat without reducing the violence to symbolism.
ALSO GROWS
qādar: Grow dark; become dusky; figuratively, mourn.
קָדַר
This is the root commonly linked to the brook’s name.
qōdēr: Darkened; mourning.
קֹדֵר
This related form carries the dark or grieving quality echoed in the name Kidron.
THE PATTERN
When a boundary or act is named, crossing it carries the consequence stated with it.
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.THE THREAD
And all the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over: the king also himself passed over the brook Kidron, and all the people passed over, toward the way of the wilderness.Here too the people “passed over” the brook Kidron, using the same Hebrew root, עבר (ʿābar), meaning to cross or pass over. In the current verse, that crossing becomes the condition for Shimei’s death, showing how the same threshold can be charged by the power that sets its terms.
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