1 Kings 19:14

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He said, I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and slain your prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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קַנֹּ֨א

qânâʼ

H7065

“to envy”

Verb, Piel, Infinitive Absolute

Appears 33× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 26:14

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 2038

to envy, be jealous, be envious, be zealous - (Piel) - to be jealous of - to be envious of - to be zealous for - to excite to jealous anger - (Hiphil) to provoke to jealous anger, cause jealousy

About this verse

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 →

25: words
22: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

קַנֹּ֨א to envy H7065 occurs in 28 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

9 verbs
11 nouns
1 pronoun
1 conjunction
3 particles

Verb forms

וַיֹּאמֶר֩ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
קַנֹּ֨א Piel · Infinitive Absolute
קִנֵּ֜אתִי Piel · Perfect
עָזְב֤וּ Qal · Perfect
הָרָ֔סוּ Qal · Perfect
הָרְג֣וּ Qal · Perfect
וָאִוָּתֵ֤ר Niphal · Sequential Imperfect
וַיְבַקְשׁ֥וּ Piel · Sequential Imperfect
לְקַחְתָּֽהּ Qal · Infinitive Construct

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

קַנֹּ֨א to envy H7065 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 49 words from the Hebrew and 49 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

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 25 Hebrew tokens and 39 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.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to 1 Kings 19:14 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Deuteronomy 29:25 Then men shall say, Because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt,
Deuteronomy 31:20 For when I shall have brought them into the land which I swore to their fathers, flowing with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and grown fat; then will they turn to other gods, and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant.
1 Kings 19:9–10 He came there to a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, and he said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah?
Psalms 78:37 For their heart was not right with him, Neither were they faithful in his covenant.
Isaiah 1:4 Ah sinful nation, A people loaded with iniquity, A seed of evil-doers, Children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken Yahweh. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are estranged and backward.
Isaiah 62:1 For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her righteousness go forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burns.
Isaiah 62:6–7 I have set watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem; they shall never hold their peace day nor night: you who call on Yahweh, take no rest,
Jeremiah 22:9 Then they shall answer, Because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh their God, and worshiped other gods, and served them.

Daniel 11:30 For ships of Kittim shall come against him; therefore he shall be grieved, and shall return, and have indignation against the holy covenant, and shall do [his pleasure]: he shall even return, and have regard to those who forsake the holy covenant.
Hosea 6:7 But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me, there.
Hebrews 8:9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, In the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; For they didn't continue in my covenant, And I disregarded them," says the Lord.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

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.

Hebrew 1 Kings 19:14 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּאמֶר֩ קַנֹּ֨א קִנֵּ֜אתִי לַיהוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֵ֣י צְבָא֗וֹת כִּֽי עָזְב֤וּ בְרִֽיתְךָ֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אֶת מִזְבְּחֹתֶ֣יךָ הָרָ֔סוּ וְאֶת נְבִיאֶ֖יךָ הָרְג֣וּ בֶחָ֑רֶב וָאִוָּתֵ֤ר אֲנִי֙ לְבַדִּ֔י וַיְבַקְשׁ֥וּ אֶת נַפְשִׁ֖י לְקַחְתָּֽהּ

He said, I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and slain your prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 1 Kings 19:14 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἶπον ηλιου ζηλόω ζηλόω ὁ κύριος παντοκράτωρ ὅτι ἐν καταλείπω ὁ διαθήκη σύ ὁ υἱός ἰσραήλ ὁ θυσιαστήριον σύ κατααἱρέω καί ὁ προφήτης σύ ἀποκτείνω ἐν ῥομφαία καί ὑπολείπω ἐγώ μόνος καί ζητέω ὁ ψυχή ἐγώ λαμβάνω αὐτός

And Eliu said, I have been very jealous for the Lord Almighty; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, and they have overthrown your altars, and have slain your prophets with the sword! and I am left entirely alone, and they seek my life to take it.

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 →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

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.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וַאֲמַר קַנָאָה קַנֵיתִי קֳדָם יְיָ אֱלָהָא צְבָאוֹת אֲרֵי שְׁבַקוּ קְיָמָךְ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל יַת מַדְבְּחָךְ פַגַרוּ וְיַת נְבִיָךְ קְטַלוּ בְחַרְבָּא וְאִשְׁתַּאֲרִית אֲנָא בִלְחוֹדִי וּבְעוֹ יַת נַפְשִׁי לְמִקְטְלָהּ:

(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.

Commentary

Notes on 1 Kings 19:14 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

1Ki 19:14 And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, [even] I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

Ver. 14. I have been very zealous.] See on 1Ki 19:10.

And I, even I, am left alone.] Such was the paucity and obscurity of God’s people in these times, that the prophet miserably crieth out of his aloneness. Such was it in Basil’s time, {a} by reason of Arianism overspreading all, that he crieth out, Hath the Lord utterly forsaken his churches? Is it now the last hour? &c. The ship of the church was then almost overwhelmed, saith Jerome. The church was not then to be sought in palaces and outward pomp, saith Hilary, but rather in prisons and dens of the desert. Where was the church in Elias’s time, said Mr Bradford? Doth not he say, I only am left? And whereas God saith there were "seven thousand that had not bowed their knees to Baal," these were not known. And the text saith, Reliqui mihi, I have reserved to myself, to mine own knowledge, &c.

{a} Basil, Epist. 17.

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.

Joseph Benson's Commentary

1Ki 19:14. And he said, I have been very jealous, &c. — “Though Elijah showed tokens of humble adoration on this occasion, the repetition of his answer to the Lord’s renewed inquiry, (‘What doest thou here?’) shows, that he did not fully understand the emblematic display; and that he was not properly convinced of his unbelief, in fleeing out of the land; nor reconciled to going back to his station and employment. He afterward better understood the Lord’s meaning, as it appears from his subsequent conduct.” — Scott.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

We ought not to depend on the multitude in maintaining God’s glory, but because our duty so requireth, we ought to do it.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

John Gill's Exposition

And he said,.... Elijah, in answer to the question put, and he says the same as before:

I have been very jealous,.... which the question was designed to draw from him, in order to give him some instructions and directions; which would suggest to him, that though he should not deal severely with Israel, nor with Ahab and his house, yet he would hereafter by the kings he should anoint over Syria and Israel, and by the prophet he should anoint in his room, as instruments of his vengeance.

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

And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. Verbatim as in ver. 10. What are we to understand from this repetition of the former answer? Has the lesson of this theophany been lost upon him? Has he failed to grasp its significance? It is probable that he only partially understood its meaning, and it certainly looks as if he still felt himself an injured and disappointed man; as if the recollection of the way in which his work had been frustrated still rankled in his soul. But though the words are the same, it is possible, and indeed probable, that the tone was entirely different; that instead of speaking, as he had spoken before, querulously and almost defiantly, he now, catching his inspiration from the still small voice, speaks with bated breath and profound self humiliation. The facts are the same. He repeats them, because they and they alone explain why he is there, and because he cannot see as yet how they are to be remedied. But he is now conscious of a misgiving as to the wisdom and piety of his course. He feels he has acted hastily and faithlessly, and has wanted to do God"s work in his own rough way. He will go back, if it be God"s will; he will be content to wait God"s time, and to follow His leading. The commission which is straightway given him almost proves that he had experienced a change. It implies that he is now fitted for his high ministry.

I have been very jealous," etc. The same question, and precisely the same words in reply. But everything was not the same. The man and the manner wore alike changed. (cf. 1Sa_10:6) He has heard the "still small voice," and it has hushed his own. How true it is, "It is not the words we say, but the manner and spirit in which we say them, gives them their force and significance."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

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 25 words (22 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is qânâʼ (“to envy”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “to envy” (qânâʼ) shape what this verse is saying?
Genesis 26:14 shares the word «to envy» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“to envy” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «וַיֹּאמֶר֩» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Joseph Benson's Commentary read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 25 Hebrew ↔ 39 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 17 words in this verse.
“to envy” occurs 2× in this single verse.
22 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 25 words in this verse.