They told the king, saying, Behold, Nathan the prophet. When he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
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They told the king, saying, Behold, Nathan the prophet. When he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
And they told the king, saying, Behold Nathan the prophet. And when he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
And they declared to the king, saying, “Behold, Nathan the prophet.” And he came to the face of the king, and he prostrated himself to the king with his nose to the ground.
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
They told the king, saying, Behold, Nathan the prophet. When he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
So the king was told, “Nathan the prophet is here.” And Nathan went in and bowed facedown before the king.
So the king was told, “Nathan the prophet is here.” And Nathan went in and bowed facedown before the king.
And they told the king, saying, Behold Nathan the prophet. And when he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
And they told the king, saying, Behold, Nathan the prophet. And when he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
And they told the king, saying, Behold, Nathan the prophet. And when he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
And they tolde the King, saying, Beholde, Nathan the Prophet. And when he was come in to the King, hee made obeisance before the King vpon his face to the ground.
And they told the king, saying: Nathan the prophet is here. And when he was come in before the king, and had worshipped, bowing down to the ground,
and they declare to the king, saying, `Lo, Nathan the prophet;' and he cometh in before the king, and boweth himself to the king, on his face to the earth.
and they declare to the king, saying, “Behold, Nathan the prophet”; and he comes in before the king, and bows himself to the king, on his face to the earth.
The servants told the king, “Nathan the prophet is here.” When he came in before the king, he prostrated himself before the king with his face to the ground.
And they declared to the king, saying, “Behold, Nathan the prophet.” And he came to the face of the king, and he prostrated himself to the king with his nose to the ground.
And they told the king saying, Behold, Nathan the prophet. And when he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
They told the king, saying, “Behold, Nathan the prophet!” When he had come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
And they told the king, saying, Behold, Nathan the prophet. And when he had come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
The king was told, “Nathan the prophet is here.” Nathan went in to see the king. He bowed down with his face to the ground.
And they said to the king, Here is Nathan the prophet. And when he came in before the king, he went down on his face on the earth.
And they told the king, saying: 'Behold Nathan the prophet.' And when he was come in before the king, he bowed down before the king with his face to the ground.
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
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These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →
Shared distinctive vocabulary
נָתָ֣ן Nathan H5416 occurs in 39 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 29 words from the Hebrew and 26 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.
A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.
Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.
In the original languages it is 14 Hebrew tokens and 24 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.
Topical passages linked to 1 Kings 1:23 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.
These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.
וַיַּגִּ֤ידוּ לַמֶּ֨לֶךְ֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר הִנֵּ֖ה נָתָ֣ן הַנָּבִ֑יא וַיָּבֹא֙ לִפְנֵ֣י הַמֶּ֔לֶךְ וַיִּשְׁתַּ֧חוּ לַמֶּ֛לֶךְ עַל אַפָּ֖יו אָֽרְצָה
They told the king, saying, Behold, Nathan the prophet. When he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί ἀναἀγγέλλω ὁ βασιλεύς ἰδού ναθαν ὁ προφήτης καί εἰςἔρχομαι κατά πρόσωπον ὁ βασιλεύς καί προςκυνέω ὁ βασιλεύς κατά πρόσωπον αὐτός ἐπί ὁ γῆ
Behold, Nathan the prophet is here: and he came in to the king's presence, and did obeisance to the king with his face to the ground.
LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain
Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →
The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.
וְחַוִיאוּ לְמַלְכָּא לְמֵימָר הָא נָתָן נְבִיָא וַאֲתָא קֳדָם מַלְכָּא וּסְגִיד לְמַלְכָּא עַל אַפּוֹהִי עַל אַרְעָא:
(no public-domain English translation for this verse)
Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.
1 Kings, in the Historical, opens this verse with 14 words (12 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Nâthân (“Nathan”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on 1 Kings 1:23 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.
Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →
Trapp's Complete Commentary
John Trapp
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Geneva Bible (1599)
Geneva Bible translators
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.
John Gill's Exposition
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Pulpit Commentary
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.