What Does 1 Samuel 10:22 Mean?
So they asked the LORD again, whether the man would still come here. And the LORD said, "Behold, he has hidden himself among the vessels."
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
Therefore they enquired of the LORD further, if the man should yet come thither. And the LORD answered, Behold, he hath hid himself among the stuff.THE KEY
The man is not missing; he is hidden among the gear, so the answer reveals presence where the search reads absence.
THE MEANING
The one being sought is present, though concealed by the equipment around him. The verse holds a clear distinction: what is unseen may still be there.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If I cannot see what I seek, it must be absent.
THE ROOT
נִחְבָּא
niḥbāʾ
GROWS FROM
חבא
ḥ-b-ʾ
To hide or conceal oneself.
“hid himself” in this verse is niḥbāʾ. The Hebrew verb depicts someone concealed from view, not someone who has ceased to be present. Its root also gives words for the act of hiding and for a hiding place, joining the person and the covering in one word family.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāḇāʾ: To hide or conceal oneself.
חָבָא
This is the root action in the verse: the man remains there while becoming difficult to see.
maḥăḇēʾ: A hiding place.
מַחֲבֵא
The root can name the place of concealment as well as the act, echoing the verse’s focus on where the man is hidden.
THE PATTERN
Being hidden changes visibility, not presence, and what is concealed can be disclosed.
And he said, I heard your voice in the garden, and I trembled, because I was bare; and I hid myself.For there is nothing hidden that will not be brought to light, nor has anything become hidden away, but that it come into the open.THE THREAD
And he said, I heard your voice in the garden, and I trembled, because I was bare; and I hid myself.The Hebrew for “hid himself” here and “hid myself” there comes from חבא (ḥ-b-ʾ, to hide or conceal oneself). Genesis names fear as the reason for hiding; Samuel gives no motive, only the place, linking the acts of concealment without assigning the man a reason the verse does not state.
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