What Does 1 Kings 21:22 Mean in the King James?

And will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin.

1 Kings 21:22 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The Hebrew repeats the root for angering, “the provocation with which you provoked me”, then names its public result: Israel is made to miss.

THE MEANING

Here, a ruler’s house is measured by what its power sets in motion: the king’s provocation is joined to Israel being made to miss. The promised likeness to Jeroboam’s and Baasha’s houses makes the judgment corporate and severe. The verse speaks in the present wherever one person’s defiance becomes a people’s direction.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie that wrongdoing by someone with power stays contained within that person or household is undone here: the verse says it can make a whole people miss.

THE ROOT

הַכַּעַס

ha-kaʿas

GROWS FROM

כעס

k-ʿ-s

Anger or vexation; in its causative form, to provoke someone to anger.

“provocation / provoked me to anger” in this verse is ha-kaʿas. The Hebrew places a noun and verb from ⁨כעס⁩ side by side: the provocation with which you provoked me. The repeated root binds the act and its effect into one charge.

ALSO GROWS

kaʿas: anger, vexation, provocation

כַּעַס

This noun names the provocation itself in the first half of the phrase.

hikʿis: to anger, to provoke

הִכְעִיס

This causative verb shares the noun’s root, echoing the act of provoking in the act of angering.

וַתַּחֲטִא

vattachati

GROWS FROM

חטא

ḥ-ṭ-ʾ

To miss or fail to reach a mark; in moral use, to sin.

“made Israel to sin” in this verse is vattachati. The form here is causative: the charge is that the king makes Israel miss, rather than that Israel sins independently. The same root can describe a stone that does not miss its target, opening sin here as lost aim and direction.

ALSO GROWS

chata: to miss; to sin

חָטָא

This verb’s literal sense of missing a mark illuminates what the king causes Israel to do.

chet: sin, offense

חֵטְא

This noun names the failure itself; here the causative verb makes that failure spread from ruler to people.

THE PATTERN

The conduct of those with power can make others miss their way, so the judgment reaches beyond the one who acts.

And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.

1 Kings 14:16 · KJVThe same pattern appears as Jeroboam’s own sin becomes a cause of Israel’s sin and the people’s loss.

Forasmuch as I exalted thee out of the dust, and made thee prince over my people Israel; and thou hast walked in the way of Jeroboam, and hast made my people Israel to sin, to provoke me to anger with their sins;

1 Kings 16:2 · KJVThe verse joins a ruler’s provocation to the sin he causes Israel, extending the consequence through his house.

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Matthew 18:6 · KJVThe warning is similarly severe toward anyone whose actions cause another to stumble.

THE THREAD

Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss.

Judges 20:16 · KJV

The same Hebrew root ⁨חטא⁩ (chata, “to miss”) appears in both verses: here the ruler makes Israel sin, and there a sling stone can not miss. That concrete echo shows the charge as making a people miss their aim.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us