Then said the king, The one says, This is my son who lives, and your son is the dead: and the other says, No; but your son is the dead, and my son is the living.
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The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
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Then said the king, The one says, This is my son who lives, and your son is the dead: and the other says, No; but your son is the dead, and my son is the living.
Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead: and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.
And the king said, “This one says, ‘This my son, the living one, and your son the one having died,’ but that one says, ‘No, but your son the one having died, and my son the living one.’”
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.
Then said the king, The one says, This is my son who lives, and your son is the dead: and the other says, No; but your son is the dead, and my son is the living.
Then the king replied, “This woman says, ‘My son is alive and yours is dead,’ but that woman says, ‘No, your son is dead and mine is alive.’”
Then the king replied, “This woman says, ‘My son is alive and yours is dead,’ but that woman says, ‘No, your son is dead and mine is alive.’”
Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead: and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.
Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead: and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.
Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead: and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.
Then sayde the King, She sayth, This that liueth is my sonne, and the dead is thy sonne: and the other sayth, Nay, but the dead is thy sonne, and the liuing is my sonne.
Then said the king: The one saith, My child is alive, and thy child is dead. And the other answereth: Nay, but thy child is dead, and mine liveth.
And the king saith, `This `one' saith, This `is' my son, the living, and thy son `is' the dead; and that `one' saith, Nay, but thy son `is' the dead, and my son the living.'
And the king says, “This [one] says, This [is] my son, the living, and your son [is] the dead; and that [one] says, No, but your son [is] the dead, and my son the living.”
Then the king said, “One of you says, 'This is my son who is alive, and your son is dead,' and the other says, 'No, your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.'”
And the king said, “This one says, ‘This my son, the living one, and your son the one having died,’ but that one says, ‘No, but your son the one having died, and my son the living one.’”
Then said the king, The one says, This that is living is my son, and thy son is the dead; and the other says, No, for thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.
Then the king said, “One says, ‘This is my son who lives, and your son is the dead one;’ and the other says, ‘No! But your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.’”
Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead; and the other saith, No; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.
The king intervened, saying, “So this woman says, ‘My son is the one that's alive. Your son is the one that's dead,’ while the other woman says, ‘No! Your son is the one that's dead. My son is the one that's alive.’”
Then the king said, One says, The living child is my son, and yours is the dead: and the other says, Not so; but your son is the dead one and mine is the living.
Then said the king: 'The one saith: This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead; and the other saith: Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.'
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 →
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 36 words from the Hebrew and 40 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.
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.
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר הַמֶּ֔לֶךְ זֹ֣את אֹמֶ֔רֶת זֶה בְּנִ֥י הַחַ֖י וּבְנֵ֣ךְ הַמֵּ֑ת וְזֹ֤את אֹמֶ֨רֶת֙ לֹ֣א כִ֔י בְּנֵ֥ךְ הַמֵּ֖ת וּבְנִ֥י הֶחָֽי
Then said the king, The one says, This is my son who lives, and your son is the dead: and the other says, No; but your son is the dead, and my son is the living.
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί εἶπον ὁ βασιλεύς αὐτός σύ λέγω οὗτος ὁ υἱός ἐγώ ὁ ζάω καί ὁ υἱός οὗτος ὁ θνήσκω καί σύ λέγω οὐ ἀλλά ὁ υἱός ἐγώ ὁ ζάω καί ὁ υἱός σύ ὁ θνήσκω
and the king said to them, You say, This is my son, even the living one, and this woman's son is the dead one: and you say, No, but the living is my son, and the dead is your son.
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.
וַאֲמַר מַלְכָּא דָא אֲמָרָא דֵין בְּרִי חַיָא וּבְרִיךְ מֵיתָא וְדָא אֲמַרָא לָא כֵּן בְּרִיךְ מֵיתָא וּבְרִי חַיָא:
(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 17 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is chay (“living”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on 1 Kings 3:23 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.
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.
unfoldingWord translationNotes
Door43 World Missions Community
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.