1 Kings 2:16

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Now I ask one petition of you; don't deny me. She said to him, Say on.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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שְׁאֵלָ֤ה

shᵉʼêlâh

H7596

“petition”

Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 14× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Judges 8:24

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H7592

TWOT: 2303a

request, thing asked for, demand - request, petition - thing asked for

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 →

13: words
13: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is שְׁאֵלָ֤ה petition H7596 — appearing just 14 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

שְׁאֵלָ֤ה petition H7596 occurs in 14 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 verbs
2 nouns
1 adjective
1 pronoun
2 prepositions
1 adverb
2 particles

Verb forms

שֹׁאֵ֣ל Qal · Participle Active
תָּשִׁ֖בִי Hiphil · Jussive
וַתֹּ֥אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
דַּבֵּֽר Piel · Imperative

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 16 words from the Hebrew and 21 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 13 Hebrew tokens and 18 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 2:16 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Psalms 132:10 For your servant David's sake, Don't turn away the face of your anointed one.
Proverbs 30:7 "Two things I have asked of you; Don't deny me before I die:

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 2:16 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְעַתָּ֗ה שְׁאֵלָ֤ה אַחַת֙ אָֽנֹכִי֙ שֹׁאֵ֣ל מֵֽאִתָּ֔ךְ אַל תָּשִׁ֖בִי אֶת פָּנָ֑י וַתֹּ֥אמֶר אֵלָ֖יו דַּבֵּֽר

Now I ask one petition of you; don't deny me. She said to him, Say on.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 1 Kings 2:16 Septuagint · lemma form

καί νῦν αἴτησις εἷς ἐγώ αἰτέω παρά σύ μή ἀποστρέφω ὁ πρόσωπον σύ καί εἶπον αὐτός βηρσαβεε λαλέω

And now I make one request of you, do not turn away your face. And Bersabee said to him, Speak on.

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)

וּכְעַן שְׁאָלָא חֲדָא אֲנָא שָׁאֵיל מִנִיךְ לָא תְתִיבִין יַת אַפָּי וַאֲמַרַת לֵיהּ מַלֵל:

(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 2:16 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 2:16 And now I ask one petition of thee, deny me not. And she said unto him, Say on.

Ver. 16. Deny me not.] Heb., Turn not away my face, i.e., Ne reiecias me more denegantium, reject me not as those do that deny one a request. Quaeque repulsa gravis: A repulse is grievous.

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.

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Tyndale Open Resources

2:16-18 let me marry Abishag: Possessing the king’s concubine was a mark of royal legitimacy. When David became king, he was given Saul’s wives (2 Sam 12:7-8). The rebellious Absalom claimed David’s concubines (2 Sam 16:20-22).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Hebrew, cause not my face to turn away.

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

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

16. deny me not] The Hebrew is ‘turn not away my face,’ and implies that a person whose suit is refused is turned away in disgrace. The same expression is rendered ‘to say not nay’ in 1Ki_2:17; 1Ki_2:20. Adonijah’s argument was to this effect: ‘You know I have lost a great deal, surely you will not refuse me this slight request.’

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And now I ask one petition of thee,.... And but one, and a small one too, as Bathsheba herself after calls it:

deny me not, or "turn not away my face" (t); with shame and sorrow, which would be the case should he be denied:

and she said unto him, say on; let me hear it.

(t) "ne avertere facias faciem meam", Pagninus.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Deny me not - literally, as in the margin, i. e. “make me not to hide my face through shame at being refused.”

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

Deny me not, Heb. do not turn away my face, i.e. do not send me out of thy presence sad or ashamed. Compare 2Ch 6:42; Psa 132:10.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

And now I ask one petition of thee Heb. request one request deny me not marg., "turn not away my face." Better, Turn not back, i.e., repulse not. Rawlinson paraphrases, "Make me not to hide my face through shame at being refused;" but this is not the idea of the original, which means, Reject me not; send me not away. In the Heb. "face" often stands for "person," for eyes (ver. 15), looks, mien. And she said unto him, Say on.

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

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

General Information:

Adonijah shares his request with Bathsheba.

do not turn away from my face ... he will not turn away from your face

Turning from the face of someone is a metonym for refusing to look at someone, which in turn is a metonym for refusing to do what that person requests. AT: "do not refuse to do what I request ... he will not refuse to do what you request" (See: Metonymy)

Abishag the Shunammite

(See: 1 Kings 1:3)

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

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 13 words (13 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is shᵉʼêlâh (“petition”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “petition” (shᵉʼêlâh) shape what this verse is saying?
Judges 8:24 shares the word «petition» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
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 «שֹׁאֵ֣ל» is Qal Participle Active. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Tyndale Open Study Notes read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 13 Hebrew ↔ 18 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 15 words in this verse.
13 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 13 words in this verse.