What Does 1 Kings 5:11 Mean in the King James?
And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and twenty measures of pure oil: thus gave Solomon to Hiram year by year.
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 yearly gift makes a bond visible at household scale: grain and oil keep arriving where daily life happens.
THE MEANING
Provision takes a household shape: food to sustain it and oil alongside it, arriving year after year. The giving has measure and rhythm; it is material support that returns.
THE ROOT
נָתַן
natan
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
Give, set, or place.
“gave” in this verse is natan. The same verb frames both Solomon’s initial gift and the yearly giving that follows. Its sense of placing provision makes the act concrete: something is put into another household’s keeping.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: gift
מַתָּנָה
A gift is what has been given and placed into someone else’s hands, bringing the root’s action into a noun.
natun: given, placed
נָתוּן
This form describes what has been set or entrusted, echoing the provision placed in Hiram’s household.
שֶׁמֶן
shemen
GROWS FROM
שמן
sh-m-n
Be fat or become rich.
The word for oil belongs to the same root family as words for fatness and rich food. Alongside grain, the oil carries the sense of nourishment and richness in the household’s provision.
ALSO GROWS
shamen: fat, rich
שָׁמֵן
This branch makes the root’s connection between oil and richness audible.
mashmannim: rich foods
מַשְׁמַנִּים
The same root names rich food, as in Nehemiah’s call to eat and share portions, linking oil with nourishment meant for a table.
THE PATTERN
Ongoing bonds are sustained through material provision that reaches the people who carry them.
And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest.Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God.THE THREAD
But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.The same Hebrew root נָתַן (natan, give, set, place) appears in Solomon’s giving and in the giving of power to produce wealth. This opens the verse beneath the visible transfer: provision placed in one household rests on a prior capacity to produce and provide.
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