What Does 1 Samuel 10:13 Mean?
And when he had finished prophesying, he came to the high place.
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 when he had made an end of prophesying, he came to the high place.THE KEY
The prophetic utterance ends, but the speaker keeps moving: the verse separates the moment of prophecy from the person who carries it.
THE MEANING
The prophesying reaches its end, and he comes to the high place. An utterance can have a boundary while the person’s movement continues.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A prophetic moment must continue indefinitely to remain real.
THE ROOT
מֵהִתְנַבּוֹת
mehitnabbōt
GROWS FROM
נבא
To speak prophetically, to utter a prophetic message.
The Hebrew word for prophesying shares its root with the words for prophet and prophecy, keeping the speaker and the utterance in one word-family. Here that utterance has a clear end, while the speaker moves on.
ALSO GROWS
navi: A person who speaks prophetically.
נָבִיא
The noun for the speaker shares the seed of the action that reaches its end in this verse.
nevuah: A prophetic utterance or message.
נְבוּאָה
The word for the utterance belongs to the same family, joining what is spoken to the one who speaks.
THE PATTERN
Scripture describes prophecy as an action people enter and speak, rather than a permanent state.
And the LORD came down in a cloud, and spoke with him, and took from the breath that was upon him and set it upon the seventy elders. And when the breath settled upon them, they prophesied and did not stop.And it shall be afterward, that I will pour out my breath upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your elders will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.And when Paul had set his hands upon them, the Set-Apart Breath came upon them; and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.THE THREAD
And when they came there to the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him, and the breath of God rushed upon him, and he prophesied among them.This verse shows the prophetic utterance beginning as the breath of God comes upon him; the present verse says that utterance reaches its end. The shared root נבא (naba, to speak prophetically) links the beginning and the ending.
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