What Does 1 Chronicles 11:14 Mean?
But they took their stand in the midst of that portion, and snatched it away, and struck down the Philistines. And the LORD delivered them through a great deliverance.
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 they set themselves in the midst of that parcel, and delivered it, and slew the Philistines; and the LORD saved them by a great deliverance.THE KEY
The defenders snatch the field from its attackers, while the LORD brings them through with deliverance: two rescues, carried by two different Hebrew roots.
THE MEANING
The contested field is held from within: the men rescue the parcel and kill the Philistines. The LORD delivers them with a great deliverance in that same struggle. Human action and divine rescue occupy one frame; the danger remains real.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that divine deliverance means passivity or an unreal struggle does not hold here: the men act amid real violence, and the LORD delivers them.
THE ROOT
וַיּוֹשִׁיעֵם
vayyoshiʿēm
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-š-ʿ
To deliver, bringing someone out of danger into safety and spaciousness.
The verb “he delivered them” and the noun “deliverance” come from the same root, so the verse names the LORD’s act twice: he delivers them with a great deliverance. The root carries movement from constriction toward spaciousness.
ALSO GROWS
təshūʿāh: Deliverance
תְּשׁוּעָה
This is the noun used for the great deliverance in the verse, repeating the root of “saved.”
mōshîaʿ: Deliverer
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This form names the one who brings deliverance, making the rescue an act rather than an abstract state.
וַיַּצִּילוּהָ
vayyatsilūhā
GROWS FROM
נצל
n-ṣ-l
To snatch away, rescue, or tear free from danger.
“snatched it away” in this verse is vayyatsilūhā. The defenders’ rescue of the parcel uses a different root from the LORD’s deliverance of them. This root gives the field a concrete rescue: it is wrested from the Philistines’ grasp.
ALSO GROWS
hiṣṣîl: Rescued, delivered
הִצִּיל
This verbal form shows the root’s active sense of pulling someone or something out of danger.
haṣṣālāh: Rescue, deliverance
הַצָּלָה
This noun preserves the root’s sense of an actual rescue, as the men rescue the threatened parcel.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance is an active bringing-out from real danger, sometimes while the struggle continues.
And the LORD delivered Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the lip of the sea.Then they cry out to the LORD in their narrowness, and he snatches them out of their narrow places.Who brought us out of so great a death, and brings us out; in whom we hope that he will yet bring us out.THE THREAD
Then they cry out to the LORD in their narrowness, and he snatches them out of their narrow places.The Hebrew verb translated “delivered” in both verses comes from נצל (natsal), the root of snatching someone or something out of danger. Here the field is rescued from attackers; Psalm 107 shows that same rescue root answering a cry from distress.
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