What Does 1 Samuel 11:13 Mean?
And Saul said, No man shall be put to death this day, for today the LORD has worked deliverance in Israel.
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 Saul said, There shall not a man be put to death this day: for to day the LORD hath wrought salvation in Israel.THE KEY
The LORD’s deliverance becomes visible when victory does not turn into permission to kill.
THE MEANING
When deliverance reaches you, it can interrupt the demand to make an opponent pay. Here, the LORD’s work in Israel coincides with a day when no one is put to death; the rescue takes shape in a life spared.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that victory proves someone else must die. The verse holds deliverance together with restraint from execution.
THE ROOT
תְּשׁוּעָה
tĕšûʿāh
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
Deliver, rescue, bring into safety; here, deliverance opens a way out of constriction into spaciousness.
The Hebrew word is from the same root as יָשַׁע (yāšaʿ, to deliver). The LORD’s deliverance is not only survival from danger: its immediate effect is that no one is killed that day.
ALSO GROWS
yāšaʿ: To deliver or rescue.
יָשַׁע
This verbal form names the action behind the deliverance the verse says the LORD has wrought.
môšîaʿ: A deliverer, one who rescues.
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This branch names the one who brings deliverance; the verse names the LORD as its source.
yĕšûʿāh: Deliverance, rescue.
יְשׁוּעָה
This related noun makes the shared root audible across the word family.
יוּמַת
yūmat
GROWS FROM
מות
m-w-t
To die; death.
“put to death” in this verse is yūmat. The Hebrew says that no man is to be made to die. Set beside תְּשׁוּעָה (tĕšûʿāh, deliverance), the verse places death withheld and rescue wrought in the same sentence.
ALSO GROWS
mût: To die.
מוּת
This is the verb at the root of the phrase translated put to death.
māweṯ: Death.
מָוֶת
The noun names the outcome Saul says will not come upon anyone that day.
hēmîṯ: To cause to die; to put to death.
הֵמִית
This causative form makes explicit the human action Saul refuses.
שָׁאוּל
šāʾûl
GROWS FROM
שאל
sh-ʾ-l
To ask or request; the name carries the sense of one asked for.
The name שָׁאוּל (šāʾûl, asked-for) stands beside the people’s demand in the preceding verse to execute Saul’s challengers. The asked-for king refuses that request and closes the day to bloodshed.
ALSO GROWS
šāʾal: To ask or request.
שָׁאַל
This verb supplies the root sense carried by Saul’s name.
šĕʾēlāh: A request or petition.
שְׁאֵלָה
This noun echoes the demand for execution that Saul declines.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance can interrupt the urge to turn victory or injury into retaliation.
Now therefore, do not fear. I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spoke to their hearts.Do not say, I will repay the evil; stretch yourself taut toward the LORD, and he will bring you out.For the Son of Man did not come to make living souls perish, but to deliver them. And they went to another village.THE THREAD
Our God is the God of deliverances, and to the LORD, the Lord, belong the exits from death.The Hebrew behind salvation here and Psalm 68:20 belongs to ישע (y-sh-ʿ, deliver or rescue). Psalm 68 places deliverance beside escapes from death; this verse shows that deliverance taking form in an execution withheld.
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