StrongerBible

shelomoh

שְׁלֹמֹה

HebrewH8010Proper NounSolomon

Appears 293 times · tap a cell to see the verses

2Sa 5:142Sa 12:241Ki 1:101Ki 1:111Ki 1:121Ki 1:131Ki 1:171Ki 1:191Ki 1:211Ki 1:261Ki 1:301Ki 1:332Ch 9:2
Word studysheh-loh-MOHproper noun

What shelomoh means

Solomon: the son of David and Bathsheba who succeeded David as king of Israel, built the temple in Jerusalem, and became a byword for wisdom.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Solomon is a person, not a common word, so the name points to one man: David's son by Bathsheba, the king who reigned after David, built the first temple, and was remembered above all for his God-given wisdom. Nearly every occurrence sits in the stretch of Israel's story that runs from his birth through his rise to the throne, his reign, and his death.

The name is built from the same root as the Hebrew word for "peace" or "wholeness" (שָׁלוֹם), and the story ties the two together on purpose. David was a man of war who was told he could not build the temple because of the blood he had shed; his son would be a man of rest, and it is that peaceable son who builds the house of God. The name reads like a quiet claim about the kind of reign to come.

There is a second name in the account. When the child is born, the prophet Nathan brings word that the LORD loves him and calls him Jedidiah (יְדִידְיָה), "beloved of the LORD" (2 Samuel 12:25). Solomon is the name he is known by; Jedidiah is the name that marks him as favored from birth.

In the New Testament the same figure appears under the Greek form of his name, in Jesus' family line, in the saying that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like the wild flowers, and in Jesus' claim that "something greater than Solomon is here."

2Sa 5:142Sa 12:241Ki 1:101Ki 1:111Ki 1:121Ki 1:131Ki 1:171Ki 1:191Ki 1:211Ki 1:261Ki 1:301Ki 1:33

What scholars say about shelomoh

The name שְׁלֹמֹה is standardly derived from the root שׁלם "to be complete, sound, at peace," though scholars differ on the precise nuance of the name-form itself: proposals include "his peace," "peaceable," a name expressing peace or well-being, and, connected to 2 Samuel 12, "his replacement" for the child who died. The narrative reinforces the peace association by contrasting Solomon's reign of rest with David's wars (1 Kings 5; 1 Chronicles 22:9, where the name is explicitly glossed by "peace" and "rest"). The theophoric alternate name Jedidiah יְדִידְיָה ("beloved of Yah"), given through Nathan in 2 Samuel 12:25, stands beside it. On the onomastics, see Noth's classic study of Israelite personal names; the standard lexica treat both the root and the name.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. שְׁלֹמֹהlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. שְׁלֹמֹהlexicon
  • Martin Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebungmonograph

All attested forms of שְׁלֹמֹה

m

שְׁלֹמֹה, שְּׁלֹמֹה

2Sa 5:14, 2Sa 12:24, 1Ki 1:10, 1Ki 1:11, 1Ki 1:12, 1Ki 1:13, 1Ki 1:17, 1Ki 1:19