What Does 1 Kings 20:6 Mean in the King James?
Yet I will send my servants unto thee to morrow about this time, and they shall search thine house, and the houses of thy servants; and it shall be, that whatsoever is pleasant in thine eyes, they shall put it in their hand, and take it away.
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 turns what your eyes desire into the very inventory a powerful stranger threatens to seize.
THE MEANING
A power names your home and the homes of those with you, then threatens to claim whatever your eyes hold dear. Its agents are sent in to search, take what they want into their hands, and carry it away. The threat makes the vulnerability concrete: what is precious to you is visible to someone who claims the power to take it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that what is precious remains protected simply because it is inside your home: the threat crosses the threshold and takes what desire has marked as valuable.
THE ROOT
מַחְמָד
maḥmād
GROWS FROM
חמד
To desire, take delight in, or covet.
English “pleasant” can sound like a judgment of beauty, but מַחְמָד names what is desired or precious in your eyes. Its root also gives the verb “covet,” making the threat precise: the agents target what desire has marked as valuable.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāmad: Desire or covet.
חָמַד
The same root names the desire that marks an object as worth taking.
ḥemdāh: A desirable or precious thing.
חֶמְדָּה
This branch makes the movement from desire to a coveted object visible in the verse.
אֶשְׁלַח
ʾešlaḥ
GROWS FROM
שלח
To send forth or dispatch; in related forms, to send away or release.
“send” in this verse is ʾešlaḥ. The king’s action begins by sending agents outward. The root also carries the sense of sending away or releasing, but here the sent agents enter another household to seize what they find.
ALSO GROWS
šālûaḥ: One who is sent; a messenger or agent.
שָׁלוּחַ
The king sends people who act as his agents in carrying out the threat.
šillēaḥ: Send away, dismiss, or release.
שִׁלֵּחַ
This related form shows the root’s range: sending can dispatch someone outward or let someone go.
THE PATTERN
The eye’s desire can become a claim on possession, whether the one who takes is the gazer or someone with power.
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.When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.THE THREAD
When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.The Hebrew verb rendered “coveted” comes from חמד, the same root as מַחְמָד, “pleasant” or desirable, in this verse. Joshua speaks the sequence that 1 Kings 20:6 threatens: the eye sees what it desires, and a hand takes it.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us