What Does 1 Kings 3:1 Mean in the King James?
And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’s daughter, and brought her into the city of David, until he had made an end of building his own house, and the house of the LORD, and the wall of Jerusalem round about.
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 city of wholeness is still under construction when a bond with the narrow place enters its gates.
THE MEANING
As you read, two movements occupy the same space: Solomon’s bond with Egypt and the building of Jerusalem’s houses and wall. The city’s wholeness is still taking form while that bond enters it; the verse holds both realities together.
THE ROOT
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צָרַר
tsarar
To bind or constrict; to make narrow.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim carries the image of the narrow place, so Pharaoh’s daughter brings a bond with constriction into David’s city. The verse sets that entry beside Jerusalem’s unfinished building, holding narrowness and the making of wholeness in one frame.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, constricted.
צַר
This is the narrowness carried in the name Mitzrayim.
tsarah: Distress, trouble.
צָרָה
Distress is narrowness experienced as pressure, giving the name’s image an inward dimension.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שָׁלַם
shalam
To be whole, complete, or intact.
The name carries the sense of wholeness, yet the wall around Jerusalem is still being built. Here wholeness is a place taking shape, with its boundary not yet complete.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
The branch gives the city’s name its sense of a space made whole.
shalem: Whole, complete, intact.
שָׁלֵם
This branch sharpens the contrast between Jerusalem’s name and its unfinished wall.
וַיִּתְחַתֵּן
wayyitḥattēn
GROWS FROM
חָתַן
ḥatan
To become related by marriage; to enter a bond of kinship through marriage.
“made affinity” in this verse is wayyitḥattēn. The verb presents Solomon’s tie to Pharaoh as a family bond, not merely a diplomatic arrangement. The root makes the alliance intimate: Egypt enters the city through marriage.
ALSO GROWS
ḥātān: Bridegroom; son-in-law.
חָתָן
This branch names the marriage relation created by Solomon’s union with Pharaoh’s daughter.
ḥōtēn: Father-in-law.
חֹתֵן
This branch shows the kinship network the marriage creates between Solomon and Pharaoh.
THE PATTERN
Movement from constriction toward wholeness takes the form of leaving a narrow place for room to live and grow.
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged.THE THREAD
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.The name Egypt appears in both verses as Mitzrayim, the narrow place. Here Pharaoh’s daughter enters Jerusalem while its wholeness is still being built; Exodus shows the paired movement outward, from Egypt into a large land.
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