What Does 1 Kings 13:13 Mean?
And he said to his sons, Saddle the donkey for me. So they saddled the donkey for him, and he rode upon it.
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 he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass: and he rode thereon,THE KEY
The verb translated “saddle” also means to bind or wrap, the same root can describe binding up a wound.
THE MEANING
The verse holds readiness and movement together: the ass is secured to carry a rider, and then the rider goes. The verb translated “saddle” also carries the sense “bind” or “wrap,” making the preparation a physical act of securing something against a body.
THE ROOT
חִבְשׁוּ
ḥivšū
GROWS FROM
חבש
ḥ-b-š
To bind or wrap; also to saddle an animal or bind up a wound.
English “saddle” points to the equipment, while this verb names the act of fastening something onto a body. The same root can describe binding up a wound, joining preparation for carrying with the physical act of tending.
ALSO GROWS
ḥōvēš: One who binds up; a healer.
חֹבֵשׁ
This form names a person by the work of binding, linking the fastening of a saddle with the binding up of an injury.
wəyaḥbəšēnū: And he will bind us up.
וְיַחְבְּשֵׁנוּ
This form from Hosea uses the same root for tending a wounded body, revealing the wider sense behind “saddle.”
THE PATTERN
Binding can ready an animal to carry a rider or secure a wound for healing.
And Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the rising offering, and rose, and went to the place of which God had said to him.Come, and let us turn back to the LORD, for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck, and he will bind us up.From the sole of the foot to the head there is no unbroken place in it, but wounds, welts, and fresh blows. They have not been closed, nor bound up, nor softened with oil.THE THREAD
From the sole of the foot to the head there is no unbroken place in it, but wounds, welts, and fresh blows. They have not been closed, nor bound up, nor softened with oil.The Hebrew root behind “saddle” here appears in Isaiah as “bound up” for an injured body. In one verse it fastens a saddle onto an ass; in the other it names the binding a wound has not received, holding fastening and care in the same word.
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