What Does 1 Samuel 11:10 Mean?
So the men of Jabesh said, Tomorrow we will come out to you, and you shall do with us all that is good in your eyes.
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 the men of Jabesh said, To morrow we will come out unto you, and ye shall do with us all that seemeth good unto you.THE KEY
They answer a threat to their eyes with “what is good in your eyes,” making the enemy’s threatened sight the measure of his judgment.
THE MEANING
Threat can force your words into an aggressor’s terms while leaving an opening for what comes next. The promise to “come out” sounds like surrender, but it does not state that the speakers have surrendered. “In your eyes” brings the threatened organ of sight into the very terms of judgment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that words sounding compliant prove a person has surrendered.
THE ROOT
בְּעֵינֵיכֶם
bəʿênêkhem
GROWS FROM
עין
ʿ-y-n
Eye; the organ of sight.
“is good in your eyes” in this verse is bəʿênêkhem. The Hebrew phrase is literally “in your eyes.” Since Nahash has just threatened their eyes, the words hold physical sight and personal judgment together: they place what counts as “good” in the sight of the man who means to destroy it.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: The physical organ of sight.
עַיִן
The word recalls the right eye Nahash threatens to gouge out in 1 Samuel 11:2.
bəʿênê: A phrase meaning in someone’s sight or judgment.
בְּעֵינֵי
Here the men name the enemy’s judgment as the standard for what he calls good.
נֵצֵא
nēṣēʾ
GROWS FROM
יצא
y-ṣ-ʾ
To go out, emerge, or depart.
“come out” in this verse is nēṣēʾ. The verb names outward movement; it does not itself mean surrender. The men promise to emerge, while leaving their purpose unstated, so the words hold open what “coming out” will mean.
ALSO GROWS
yāṣāʾ: To leave or emerge.
יָצָא
It is the verb’s basic sense in their promise to come out to the Ammonites.
hôṣîʾ: To cause someone or something to go out; to lead out.
הוֹצִיא
The same root can describe a people being brought out of confinement, adding the possibility of release to the outward movement.
THE PATTERN
A person’s eyes name both the act of seeing and the standpoint from which they call something good.
In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did what was straight in his own eyes.There is a way straight before a man, but its latter end is the ways of death.The lamp of the body is the eye. So if your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light.THE THREAD
And Nahash the Ammonite answered them, On this condition will I cut a covenant with you, that I may gouge out all your right eyes, and lay it for a reproach upon all Israel.The Hebrew word for “eyes” repeats in the threat and in the men’s reply. They answer the man who would take their right eyes with the phrase “what is good in your eyes,” carrying his threatened sight directly into their words.
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