What Does 1 Kings 4:7 Mean in the King James?
And Solomon had twelve officers over all Israel, which provided victuals for the king and his household: each man his month in a year made provision.
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
A year of provision is carried by care renewed month by month through shared responsibility.
THE MEANING
The verse shows a whole community sustained through a dependable rhythm of shared responsibility. Each turn has a steward, and provision for the household moves across the year instead of resting on one person continuously. You are met here by care that returns on schedule.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that a whole community must depend on one person’s continuous labor: the work passes through twelve turns, with provision assigned a place in each.
THE ROOT
חֹדֶשׁ
chodesh
GROWS FROM
חדש
Be new; renew
The month is not just a unit on the calendar: חֹדֶשׁ belongs to חדש, the root behind “new” and “renew.” Provision arrives by a repeated new turn, as each steward carries one month and shared care is renewed across the year.
ALSO GROWS
chadash: New
חָדָשׁ
This adjective shares all three root consonants, revealing newness inside the Hebrew word for month.
chiddesh: Renew; make new
חִדֵּשׁ
This verb shares the same root and brings out how provision returns through a fresh turn of responsibility.
נִצָּבִים
nitzavim
GROWS FROM
נצב
Stand, take a position, be stationed
The officers are literally “stationed ones”: the root carries the sense of taking a position, not simply possessing rank. Their placement makes the annual rotation a structure of shared responsibility across the whole land.
ALSO GROWS
natsav: Stand; take a position
נָצַב
The verb shares the root consonants and shows the action beneath the officers’ assigned place.
netsiv: A governor or appointed official; a pillar
נְצִיב
This noun shares the same root consonants, linking an official’s role with being positioned to serve.
THE PATTERN
Community care steadies when provision is measured in recurring portions and responsibility is assigned to capable stewards.
Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.Give us day by day our daily bread.Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.THE THREAD
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.Psalm 51:10 uses חִדֵּשׁ (chiddesh, renew), from the same root חדש as חֹדֶשׁ (chodesh, month) in this verse. The monthly turn and the inward renewal share a language of returning newness: what is sustained comes around again.
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