What Does 1 Kings 3:22 Mean in the King James?
And the other woman said, Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son. And this said, No; but the dead is thy son, and the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king.
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 contest is not over whether one child lives, but over which woman can name the living child as her son.
THE MEANING
Here, a child’s life is plain while his belonging is contested. Each woman repeats the same reversal, naming the living child as her son and the dead child as the other’s. Before the king, their words make the child’s life the matter being judged.
THE ROOT
הַחַי
haḥay
GROWS FROM
חיה
to live, be alive
The Hebrew word names the child as “the living one,” making life the concrete distinction at the center of both claims. English can make “living” sound like a simple condition; this root keeps it connected to the act and ongoing reality of living.
ALSO GROWS
ḥayyim: life, lives
חַיִּים
The same root names life itself, linking the child’s living state to the larger reality each woman claims.
ḥāyâ: to live, remain alive
חָיָה
The verb carries the adjective back to living as an ongoing condition, which is the disputed child’s immediate reality.
תְּדַבֵּרְנָה
tedabbernah
GROWS FROM
דבר
speech, word, matter
The root behind “spake” also forms דָּבָר (dābār), meaning “word,” “matter,” or “thing.” Their speech is not incidental to the scene: the competing words themselves become the matter brought before the king.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: word, matter, thing
דָּבָר
The shared root draws the spoken claims together with the case the king must hear.
dibbēr: to speak, declare
דִּבֵּר
Both women speak before the king, and the root connects their declarations to the matter under judgment.
THE PATTERN
A claim’s truth becomes visible when it is examined beyond the words that assert it.
He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.THE THREAD
Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.The same Hebrew word for “living” returns as the true mother asks for the child to be given to the other woman rather than killed. The child’s life becomes the test that reveals whose claim can bear its cost.
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