What Does 1 Samuel 11:4 Mean?
Then the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and spoke the word in the ears of the people, and all the people lifted up their voices, and wept.
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
Then came the messengers to Gibeah of Saul, and told the tidings in the ears of the people: and all the people lifted up their voices, and wept.THE KEY
A report here is not detached information: it becomes the shared matter the people hear and grieve together.
THE MEANING
A hard report reaches you, and sorrow moves through the people in raised voices and tears. Grief here is public, audible, and shared.
THE ROOT
הַדְּבָרִים
haddevarim
GROWS FROM
דבר
davar
The root carries the sense of speaking; its noun can mean a word, a matter, or a thing.
English “tidings” can sound like information detached from reality; the Hebrew noun דָּבָר (davar, word or matter) holds spoken word and the matter itself together. What reaches the people’s ears is already a shared event, and their raised voices and tears show how it lands.
ALSO GROWS
davar: word, matter, thing
דָּבָר
The verse uses its plural, הַדְּבָרִים (haddevarim, words or matters), for the tidings: the spoken report is also the matter now before everyone.
dibber: spoke, uttered
דִּבֵּר
This verb shares the root, showing how the messengers deliver the matter as spoken words into the people’s ears.
THE PATTERN
When grief is received or shared, it becomes audible and visible through weeping.
And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the face of the God of the heavens.Turn aside from me, all you workers of crookedness; for the LORD hears the voice of my weeping.And a great weeping came upon them all, and falling upon Paul's neck, they kissed him,THE THREAD
Turn aside from me, all you workers of crookedness; for the LORD hears the voice of my weeping.The Hebrew verb וַיִּבְכּוּ (vayivku, they wept) here and בְּכִי (bekhi, weeping) in the psalm share the root בכה (bakah, to weep). The psalm adds what this verse leaves open: grief has a voice, and that voice is heard.
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