What Does 1 Kings 20:37 Mean in the King James?
Then he found another man, and said, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man smote him, so that in smiting he wounded him.
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 repeated Hebrew root נכה (nākāh, to strike) turns a spoken request into a blow that the verse immediately names as a wound.
THE MEANING
You see a spoken request become bodily force: another man strikes, and a wound remains. The prophetic meaning does not erase the injury the body carries.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A prophetic sign is symbolic and therefore leaves no one physically harmed; here the blow ends in a wound.
THE ROOT
וַיַּכֵּהוּ
wayyakkēhû
GROWS FROM
נכה
נכה (nākāh): to strike, beat, smite.
“smote” in this verse is wayyakkēhû. The verse repeats forms of this root in the request to be struck, the man’s blow, and the phrase rendered “in smiting,” linking speech, impact, and continued action. Its related noun מַכָּה (makkāh, a blow or plague) carries the same family from a single strike to a sweeping affliction, while this verse keeps the impact concrete.
ALSO GROWS
nākāh: To strike or smite.
נָכָה
The lexical form shows the full root consonants behind the inflected forms used for the requested and delivered blows.
makkāh: A blow, stroke, or plague.
מַכָּה
The initial nun assimilates before kaf, marked by the doubled kaf; the word family names both an individual blow and affliction at larger scale.
וּפָצוֹעַ
ûpāṣôaʿ
GROWS FROM
פצע
פצע (pāṣaʿ): to wound or injure.
“wounded” in this verse is ûpāṣôaʿ. The verse moves from נכה (nākāh, strike) to פצע (pāṣaʿ, wound), preserving the impact and its bodily result as distinct words. The wound is named explicitly rather than left inside the idea of being struck.
ALSO GROWS
pāṣaʿ: To wound or injure.
פָּצַע
The verb names the action that produces the injury described in the verse.
peṣaʿ: A wound or injury.
פֶּצַע
The related noun gives the same root a form for the injury itself, keeping the result of the blow visible.
THE PATTERN
When a word must be seen, scripture gives it bodily form as a sign.
And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia;In their sight shalt thou bear it upon thy shoulders, and carry it forth in the twilight: thou shalt cover thy face, that thou see not the ground: for I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel.And when he was come unto us, he took Paul’s girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.THE THREAD
Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.Jeremiah 20:2 uses the same root נכה (nākāh, strike) for the blow against Jeremiah. The shared root links the bodily acts, while the agency differs: one blow is requested here; the other is imposed there.
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