What Does 1 Samuel 1:26 Mean?
And she said, Oh my lord, as your living soul lives, my lord, I am the woman who stood beside you here, praying to the LORD.
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 she said, Oh my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the LORD.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “soul” in Hannah’s oath is the same word for the living self she says she poured out before the LORD in verse 15.
THE MEANING
Hannah names herself by the prayer she offered and states plainly who she is. The verse speaks now: another person’s mistaken reading of a moment does not erase the truth of the living person within it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being misunderstood does not make another person’s mistake the truth of who you are.
THE ROOT
נַפְשְׁךָ
nafsh’kha
GROWS FROM
נ־פ־שׁ
n-p-sh
The living self: the person, life, or whole living being.
“your living soul lives” in this verse is nafsh’kha. The Hebrew נַפְשְׁךָ (nafsh’kha, “your living soul”) names Eli as a whole living person in the oath. In verse 15, Hannah uses the same root for the self she pours out before the LORD, holding his life and her prayer-opened life together.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh: Living soul; the whole living person.
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the form behind “soul” in both Hannah’s oath here and her words about pouring out her soul in verse 15.
yinnaphesh: Be refreshed or rest.
יִנָּפֵשׁ
The same root also names rest for a living being, keeping life and its renewal close together.
THE PATTERN
Prayer brings the inward self into open relation with God and remains present beyond a single moment.
And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord. I am a woman of hard breath. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my living soul before the LORD.Lean your full weight upon him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before him. God is our shelter. Selah.And he spoke a parable to them to this end, that people must always pray and never give out.THE THREAD
And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord. I am a woman of hard breath. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my living soul before the LORD.Both verses use נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, “living soul”), from נ־פ־שׁ (n-p-sh, the root of the living self). In verse 15 Hannah pours out her own living self before the LORD; here she invokes Eli’s living self as she names herself as the woman who prayed.
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