What Does 1 Kings 20:15 Mean in the King James?
Then he numbered the young men of the princes of the provinces, and they were two hundred and thirty two: and after them he numbered all the people, even all the children of Israel, being seven thousand.
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 count is a muster: the same root can mean to number, attend to, or appoint, bringing the people present into view.
THE MEANING
You see a force take shape in two layers: 232 young men connected to the provincial princes, then the whole people of Israel, 7,000. The count moves from a specific company to the wider body, making the scale of what is present concrete.
THE ROOT
וַיִּפְקֹד
wayyiqpod
GROWS FROM
פקד
To attend to, appoint, muster, or count.
“numbered” in this verse is wayyiqpod. The English word carries the census sense, while פקד (paqad) also means to attend to or appoint. Its wider range lets this count carry a shade of attention: the people present are brought into notice, not reduced to bare arithmetic.
ALSO GROWS
pequddah: Charge, oversight, or appointment.
פְּקֻדָּה
This branch connects being counted with being placed under a charge or responsibility.
paqîd: Overseer or appointed official.
פָּקִיד
The same root names a person entrusted with oversight, echoing how a muster makes a gathered people visible in an organized role.
THE PATTERN
A gathered people becomes a visible force when its members are counted before action.
From twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel: thou and Aaron shall number them by their armies.And when he numbered them in Bezek, the children of Israel were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand.Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?THE THREAD
And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken.The word translated “visited” is וַיִּפְקֹד (wayyiqpod), from פקד (paqad), the same root behind “numbered” here. The shared root lets the count carry a shade of attention: the people are not only totaled but brought into notice.
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