What Does 1 Samuel 1:6 Mean?
Her rival also pressed upon her to chafe her and to make her roar, because the LORD had closed her womb.
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 her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the LORD had shut up her womb.THE KEY
The Hebrew word translated “adversary” belongs to the same word family as distress and narrowness: the rival herself is named in the language of pressure.
THE MEANING
You may know the pain of an intimate hope that remains closed while someone presses on that exact wound. The verse places both forces in view: the LORD is named as the one who shut the womb, and the adversary provokes because of that closure. It leaves the tension unresolved rather than making the hurt smaller.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A closed hope is not always a private pain that others leave alone; another person can turn it into a weapon.
THE ROOT
צָרָתָהּ
tsaratah
GROWS FROM
צָרַר
tsarar
To bind, press, or make narrow; the word family also carries the sense of distress and hostility.
The word translated “her adversary” names a rival, while its word family also names trouble and narrowness. English gives the social role; Hebrew keeps the pressure of distress inside that word family.
ALSO GROWS
tsarah: distress, trouble; also a rival wife
צָרָה
The shared word family links the rival in the verse with the distress she intensifies.
tsar: narrow, tight, or distressing
צַר
This branch makes the pressure in the relationship echo the larger movement from constriction toward spaciousness.
רַחְמָהּ
rachmah
GROWS FROM
רָחַם
racham
To show compassion; this consonant family also includes the word for womb.
The Hebrew word for womb, rechem, belongs to the same consonant family as rachamim, compassion. That echo sits inside a verse where the womb is closed, holding tenderness beside unresolved pain without explaining the closure away.
ALSO GROWS
rachamim: compassion
רַחֲמִים
The shared consonants place the closed womb and the language of compassion within one word family.
rachum: compassionate
רַחוּם
This related form names compassionate character, adding a quiet resonance to the verse’s language of the womb.
סָגַר
sagar
GROWS FROM
סָגַר
sagar
To shut, close, or enclose.
“shut up” in this verse is sagar. The verse describes the womb as shut, making its unavailability concrete. Elsewhere this root can also mean to hand someone over, so its range holds both closure and enclosure under constraint.
ALSO GROWS
sagur: closed or shut
סָגוּר
This related form makes the verse’s image of closure explicit.
hisgir: to hand over or deliver up
הִסְגִּיר
This branch extends the root’s sense of enclosure into being placed under another’s power.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names anguish plainly, both as inward pressure and as harm intensified through another person’s hostility.
And so it was, year by year, when she went up to the house of the LORD, that Peninnah chafed her, so Hannah wept and did not eat.The narrows of my heart are widened; bring me out from my tight places.Flourishing are you when they revile you, and pursue you, and speak every evil word against you, lying, for my sake.THE THREAD
The narrows of my heart are widened; bring me out from my tight places.The Hebrew behind “distresses” belongs to the same narrowness and pressure word family as “adversary” here. The psalm gives that pressure an honest voice and a plea to be brought out.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us