1 Kings 3:24

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The king said, Get me a sword. They brought a sword before the king.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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חָ֑רֶב

chereb

H2719

“sword”

Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 413× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 3:24

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H2717

TWOT: 732a

sword, knife - sword - knife - tools for cutting stone

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 →

9: words
6: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
5 nouns
1 preposition

Verb forms

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
קְח֣וּ Qal · Imperative
וַיָּבִ֥אוּ Hiphil · Sequential Imperfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

הַמֶּ֖לֶךְ king H4428 ×2
חָ֑רֶב sword H2719 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 14 words from the Hebrew and 15 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 9 Hebrew tokens and 14 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.

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 3:24 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר הַמֶּ֖לֶךְ קְח֣וּ לִי חָ֑רֶב וַיָּבִ֥אוּ הַחֶ֖רֶב לִפְנֵ֥י הַמֶּֽלֶךְ

The king said, Get me a sword. They brought a sword before the king.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 1 Kings 3:24 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἶπον ὁ βασιλεύς λαμβάνω ἐγώ μάχαιρα καί προςφέρω ὁ μάχαιρα ἐνώπιον ὁ βασιλεύς

And the king said, Fetch a sword. And they brought a sword before the king.

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 מַלְכָּא אַיְתוֹ לִי חַרְבָּא וְאַיְתִיאוּ חַרְבָּא לָקֳדָם מַלְכָּא:

(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 3:24 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 3:24 And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king.

Ver. 24. Bring me a sword.] For what purpose? thought the standers by; wondering and perhaps laughing within themselves. The actions of wise princes are riddles to vulgar constructions: nor is it for the shallow capacities of the multitude to fathom the deep projects of sovereign authority. {a}

{a} Seuton. Delrio Panormit.

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

Except God give Judges understanding, the impudency of the trespasser shall overthrow the just cause of the innocent.

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

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

24. Bring me a sword] As the verb is not the same as that which in the next clause is rendered ‘brought’, it may be well to use different English. Read ‘Fetch me a sword.’

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 the king said,.... To one of his officers:

divide the living child in two; not that he meant it should be actually done, though it might at first be thought he really intended it, and so strike the minds of some with horror, as it did, however, the mother; but he ordered this, to try the affections of the women, and thereby come to the true knowledge of the affair; though, some think he knew it before by their countenances and manner of speech, but that he was desirous all present might see it, and be satisfied of it:

and give half to the one, and half to the other; since both claimed it.

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 the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a (Heb. the; the sword, i.e., of the executioner, or the sword for which he asked) sword before the king.

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 9 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is chereb (“sword”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “sword” (chereb) contribute to the verse as a whole?
“king” 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 «וַיֹּ֥אמֶר» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 9 Hebrew ↔ 14 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 4 words in this verse.
“king” occurs 2× in this single verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.