What Does 1 Kings 20:13 Mean in the King James?
And, behold, there came a prophet unto Ahab king of Israel, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Hast thou seen all this great multitude? behold, I will deliver it into thine hand this day; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.
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 promised victory is also a disclosure: the multitude is given into Ahab’s hand so he recognizes who the LORD is.
THE MEANING
The multitude remains in view at its full scale, while the LORD’s word names it as given into Ahab’s hand today. The promised outcome is meant to make Ahab know the LORD; the battle’s result discloses who acts. For you reading now, the verse holds visible threat and promised agency in the same unresolved moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that the visible size of a threat determines who has power over its outcome.
THE ROOT
נֹתְנוֹ
nōtĕnō
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, put, or set.
“deliver” in this verse is nōtĕnō. The Hebrew verb is natan, “give”: the multitude is described as being given into Ahab’s hand. The same root yields words for a gift and for people assigned to service; here, its force is a transfer of a vast enemy host, a concrete claim about who controls the battle.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: To give.
נָתַן
This is the root verb itself, revealing the act as giving the multitude into Ahab’s hand.
mattānāh: Gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This noun carries the same root of giving, showing how natan can name something placed into another’s possession.
nĕtînîm: Those given or assigned; the temple servants.
נְתִינִים
This form names people by their being assigned, echoing the root’s sense of transfer into a designated place.
וְיָדַעְתָּ
wəyādaʿtā
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know, recognize, or perceive.
The verse’s stated purpose is that Ahab know the LORD. Yada can describe recognition through encounter, so the promised event itself becomes a disclosure of who the LORD is.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: Knowledge or understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root shows knowing as something that can take shape as recognized understanding.
yōdēaʿ: One who knows.
יֹדֵעַ
This form names a knower, keeping the verse’s emphasis on Ahab’s recognition of the LORD.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s acts become a means by which the LORD is known.
And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD. And they did so.That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the LORD your God for ever.Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.THE THREAD
Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon: behold, I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle.The phrase “I have given into thine hand” uses נתן, the same root behind “I will deliver it into thine hand” in Kings. In both verses, the hand receives what the LORD gives, making the transfer central to the battle’s outcome.
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