1 Kings 11:14 · World English Bible
1 Kings 11:14 Meaning Yahweh Raised Up an Adversary to Solomon
Yahweh raised up an adversary to Solomon: Hadad the Edomite. He was one of the king’s offspring in Edom.
What does 1 Kings 11:14 mean?
When inner peace stops being tended, the mind breeds its own opponent. Solomon is that peace, and the adversary raised against it is Hadad, the runaway thoughts that turn on a person the moment meditation is abandoned.
From the Esoteric reading below.
1 Kings 11:14 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Esoteric
ESOTERIC
Esoteric
When inner peace stops being tended, the mind breeds its own opponent. Solomon is that peace, and the adversary raised against it is Hadad, the runaway thoughts that turn on a person the moment meditation is abandoned. He comes out of Edom, the red earth, because these thoughts are native to the mind's own ground, born of the same royal line as the peace they now fight. Nothing outside attacks: the same mind that can be still generates the very unrest that unseats its stillness.
Stop going inward and the adversary rises on its own. The peace a person built is not taken by an enemy from elsewhere but undone by the churn of his own thinking left unwatched.
Hadad: the adversarial lower mind, the runaway thoughts that rise against a person's peace once inner stillness is abandoned Edom: the red earth, the mind's own ground out of which its opposing thoughts are born
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Live 1 Kings 11:14 today
- Sit for three minutes today doing nothing and let the noisy thoughts arrive without chasing any of them. They lose their power when you stop treating them as news.
- When a worry about someone starts rehearsing conversations in your head, say it out loud to one person instead. Spoken once, it usually shrinks.
- In a tense moment, catch the sentence running underneath your anger, something like they never listen or this always happens. Hear it for what it is, a sentence, not a fact.
Which of your current enemies lives only inside your own head?
The same truth in other traditions
Buddhism · Dhammapada
The mind is hard to watch and quick to wander. Guarded, it brings peace. Left alone, it turns and torments the one who owns it.
Zen
Thoughts come and go like clouds in open sky. Trouble begins when you stop watching and start arguing with the weather.
Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius
Most of what torments you is not out there but in your own judgments. Drop the running commentary and the attack stops.
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