What Does 1 Kings 20:3 Mean in the King James?
Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine.
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
“Mine” is the verse’s weapon: it makes wealth, wives, and children sound like one inventory under another person’s control.
THE MEANING
This verse names the logic of domination: a powerful voice declares another person’s wealth and family its own. Repeating “mine” after listing silver, gold, wives, and children collapses people into possessions and exposes the threat beneath the claim.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that power makes another person’s life or family yours to claim.
THE ROOT
הַטּוֹבִים
haṭṭōvîm
GROWS FROM
ט־ו־ב
ṭ-w-b
Good, pleasing, beneficial; here, the best or choice ones.
“goodliest” in this verse is haṭṭōvîm. The Hebrew calls them “the good ones,” turning goodness into a measure of what is most choice. In this demand, that value becomes part of what the speaker claims to possess.
ALSO GROWS
ṭôv: Good, pleasing, beneficial.
טוֹב
This is the singular form behind “the goodliest,” showing the word’s basic sense of goodness and value.
ṭovah: Goodness; a good thing.
טוֹבָה
The same root can name goodness itself, while here it identifies the people singled out as choice.
בָּנֶיךָ
bāneḵā
GROWS FROM
ב־נ־ה
b-n-h
Build, establish.
The word for “children” belongs to the word family of building and establishing. The claim reaches beyond present possessions to the family line being built across generations.
ALSO GROWS
ben: Son; child.
בֵּן
This is the singular noun behind “your children,” naming the family members included in the demand.
bānâ: To build, establish.
בָּנָה
The root connection casts the children as part of a household’s continuing line, also claimed by the speaker.
THE PATTERN
Unchecked desire turns what is valued into a claim of ownership, then reaches from possessions toward people.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.THE THREAD
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.In this verse, הַטּוֹבִים (haṭṭōvîm, “the good ones”) identifies the choice members of a family; Genesis uses the same root טוֹב (ṭôv, “good”) to name creation as very good. The shared root reveals how this demand turns recognized value into claimed possession.
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