What Does 1 Chronicles 11:11 Mean?
And this is the number of the mighty men whom David had. Jashobeam, an Hachmonite, the head of the captains, lifted up his spear against three hundred, pierced by him at one time.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And this is the number of the mighty men whom David had; Jashobeam, an Hachmonite, the chief of the captains: he lifted up his spear against three hundred slain by him at one time.THE KEY
The Hebrew word translated “number” shares its root with counting, recounting, and the word for a book, making this violent feat a recorded account.
THE MEANING
You meet the feat as a counted account: one fighter, three hundred dead, one encounter. The word rendered “mighty” grows from a root of prevailing, so the verse defines strength through its act of overcoming. David’s name carries the sense “beloved,” while the violence and the people slain stay visible in the same sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that martial renown can be separated from its cost: the dead are part of the count that makes this feat famous.
THE ROOT
מִסְפַּר
mispar
GROWS FROM
ספר
s-p-r
Count, recount, or tell.
The word for “number” belongs to a root that also gives Hebrew its word for a book. Counting here is part of telling: the verse fixes the scale of the violence in a record.
ALSO GROWS
sāfar: Count, recount.
סָפַר
The root verb makes the number an act of enumeration.
sēfer: Book, written record.
סֵפֶר
The same root links the count to a record that preserves what is told.
sōfēr: Scribe, recorder.
סֹפֵר
This branch names the one who counts or records, extending the root’s movement from number to account.
הַגִּבֹּרִים
hagibborim
GROWS FROM
גבר
g-b-r
Be strong, prevail, overcome.
“mighty men” in this verse is hagibborim. The title carries a root of prevailing: might is power expressed in overcoming. Here the verse measures that power by three hundred slain in one encounter.
ALSO GROWS
gāvar: Prevail, be strong.
גָּבַר
The verb shows the action beneath the title: to be mighty is to prevail.
gevurah: Might, strength.
גְּבוּרָה
This noun names the power that the verse makes visible through the deed.
gibbor: Mighty man, warrior.
גִּבּוֹר
This singular form shares the title’s root and names the person defined by prevailing.
דָּוִיד
Dāwīd
GROWS FROM
דוד
d-w-d
Beloved; love.
David’s name carries the root sense “beloved.” Set beside a roster of battle feats, the name folds affection and deadly power into the same line.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: Beloved; also uncle.
דּוֹד
This root word carries the beloved sense heard in David’s name.
dōdîm: Love, caresses.
דּוֹדִים
This plural form shows the root’s connection to affection and desire.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives extraordinary acts concrete scale by attaching them to a count.
And he found a fresh jawbone of an ass, and stretched out his hand, and took it, and struck down a thousand men with it.And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.And he gave them leave. And the unclean breaths came out and entered into the swine, and the herd, about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and were choked in the sea.THE THREAD
I have found David my servant; with my set-apart oil I have anointed him.Both verses name David, whose name carries the root sense “beloved.” Psalm 89 places the beloved beside service and anointing, widening the current verse’s picture of David beyond a tally of battle deeds.
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