What Does 1 Kings 7:12 Mean in the King James?

And the great court round about was with three rows of hewed stones, and a row of cedar beams, both for the inner court of the house of the LORD, and for the porch of the house.

1 Kings 7:12 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The house is framed by two kinds of cutting: hewn stone and cut cedar shape an ordered space from the great court to the inner court and porch.

THE MEANING

A sacred dwelling takes shape through deliberate boundaries. Hewn stone and cut cedar form the great court around the house, and the same pattern marks the inner court and porch. The outer and inner spaces belong to one ordered house.

THE ROOT

גָּזִית

gazith

GROWS FROM

גזז

To shear, cut away, or hew.

“hewed stones” in this verse is gazith. The word carries the sense of stone made ready by cutting; the same root describes shearing away a fleece. Here, the stone boundary is a shaped surface, arranged in repeated courses around the court.

ALSO GROWS

gazaz: To shear or cut off.

גָּזַז

This is the root verb behind the hewn stone: cutting gives the stone its worked form.

gez: A fleece that has been shorn.

גֵּז

The same root’s cutting sense appears in wool as well as stone, showing how the word links different materials through the act of cutting.

כְּרֻתוֹת

kerutot

GROWS FROM

כרת

To cut, cut down, or cut off.

The cedar beams are named as cut timbers, from a root also used in the phrase “cut a covenant.” That shared root links the shaped wood in this house with a word-picture for establishing a bond.

ALSO GROWS

karat: To cut, cut down, or cut off.

כָּרַת

The timber’s name carries the root’s direct sense of wood cut from what was growing.

karat berit: To make a covenant, literally “cut a covenant.”

כָּרַת בְּרִית

This phrase shows the same root extending from cutting material to language for establishing a bond.

THE PATTERN

A dwelling set apart for God takes shape through ordered spaces and distinct materials.

And thou shalt hang up the vail under the taches, that thou mayest bring in thither within the vail the ark of the testimony: and the vail shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy.

Exodus 26:33 · KJVThe veil makes a distinct boundary between two spaces within the sacred dwelling.

For there was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which is called the sanctuary.

Hebrews 9:2 · KJVThe sanctuary is presented as an ordered interior, shaped by its furnishings and its place within the tabernacle.

Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:5 · KJVThe image of stones built into a house carries the pattern of distinct pieces forming a dwelling set apart for God.

THE THREAD

In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

Genesis 15:18 · KJV

The cedar timbers use ⁨כְּרֻתוֹת⁩ (kerutot, cut timbers), from ⁨כרת⁩ (karat, cut). Genesis 15:18 uses that root in ⁨כָּרַת בְּרִית⁩ (karat berit, “cut a covenant”), linking the cut that shapes the timber with the language of a bond established.

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