What Does 1 Kings 4:9 Mean in the King James?
The son of Dekar, in Makaz, and in Shaalbim, and Beth-shemesh, and Elon-beth-hanan:
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 list is also a set of name-stories: “Beth” still means “house” in Beth-shemesh and Beth-hanan.
THE MEANING
Responsibility takes concrete shape here: one person is tied to a defined set of towns. Beth-shemesh means “house of the sun,” while Beth-hanan means “house of Hanan,” a name associated with favor. The territory remains a network of particular places, not an abstraction.
THE ROOT
בֵּית
bêt the construct
GROWS FROM
ב־י־ת
b-y-t
House, household, dwelling
The English keeps “Beth” as part of the place-names, but the Hebrew still says “house.” That turns two map labels into compounds with meaning: a house of the sun and a house of Hanan.
ALSO GROWS
bêt-shemesh: House of the sun
בֵּית־שֶׁמֶשׁ
This is one of the towns named in the verse; the compound preserves an image inside the place-name.
bêt-leḥem: House of bread
בֵּית־לֶחֶם
Bethlehem shows the same “house of” construction, making the structure of Beth-shemesh easier to hear.
bêt-ʾel: House of God
בֵּית־אֵל
Bethel is another place-name built from the same word for house.
חָנָן
ḥānān
GROWS FROM
חנן
ḥ-n-n
To show favor; to be gracious
Hanan is a name drawn from the root for showing favor. In Elon-beth-hanan, it gives the town-name a human meaning beneath its role as a geographic marker.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēn: Favor
חֵן
This noun from the same root gives the favor carried in Hanan a direct verbal form.
ḥannûn: Gracious
חַנּוּן
This related form describes the quality of showing favor, bringing out the name’s root sense.
THE PATTERN
A broad sphere of care becomes workable when responsibility is assigned to particular people and places.
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.Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come.THE THREAD
For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.Psalm 84:11 brings together the name-seeds in this list: שֶׁמֶשׁ (shemesh, “sun”) and חֵן (ḥēn, “favor”). The place-names house those meanings in the map; the psalm opens them into images of the LORD as sun and giver of favor.
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