What Does 1 Kings 9:6 Mean in the King James?
But if ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children, and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods, and worship them:
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 first change is a turn of direction, but it becomes visible in what you stop guarding and whom you begin serving.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to the moment your direction changes: turning away from following God shows itself in refusing the instruction set before you and giving your service and bowed posture to other gods. Your allegiance is visible in what you guard, serve, and bow before.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that devotion stays intact while your choices and service transfer elsewhere; the verse connects a changed direction with the life that follows it.
THE ROOT
שׁוֹב תְּשֻׁבוּן
shov teshūvūn
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
Turn back, return.
The verse intensifies the turning with two forms of the same root: “turning, you turn.” This root also carries the sense of returning, so the language holds both departure and the possibility of coming back within one family of words.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: Return, turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
The shared root makes turning a change of direction, not merely a change of opinion.
meshovev: Restores, brings back.
מְשׁוֹבֵב
The same root can describe bringing something back, linking return with restoration.
וַעֲבַדְתֶּם
va'avadtem
GROWS FROM
עבד
avad
Work, labor, serve.
The root joins service with work: serving another god is a direction that engages your labor and allegiance, not only a spoken claim. English can make “serve” sound like a separate religious act, while the Hebrew word carries the language of service and work together.
ALSO GROWS
eved: Servant.
עֶבֶד
The servant is the person described by the same root that names service.
avodah: Work, service.
עֲבֹדָה
This branch makes the verse’s service concrete as activity and labor.
תִּשְׁמְרוּ
tishmeru
GROWS FROM
שמר
shamar
Watch, guard, preserve.
The word rendered “keep” belongs to the root for watching and guarding. The verse therefore describes more than failing to remember commands: it describes ceasing to guard the instruction set before you.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: Watcher, guardian.
שׁוֹמֵר
The watcher shows the attentive sense carried by “keep.”
mishmeret: Guard duty, charge.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch presents keeping as an entrusted responsibility that can be maintained or abandoned.
THE PATTERN
A changed direction of allegiance becomes visible in whom you serve and bow before.
But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.THE THREAD
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.The garden charge pairs עבד (avad), work or serve, with שמר (shamar), guard or keep, the same two roots that meet in this verse. The shared roots connect service and guarding with a direction of allegiance: what you serve and what you keep belong together.
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