What Does 1 Samuel 12:19 Mean?
And all the people said to Samuel, Pray to the LORD your God for your servants, that we not die, for we have added this evil to all our missing the mark, to ask for ourselves a king.
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 all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the LORD thy God, that we die not: for we have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask us a king.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “ask” is the seed of Saul’s name: the king the people request is the “asked-for” one.
THE MEANING
When fear reaches for a king to keep death away, the request itself can become another missing added to what is already broken. The promise of protection and the cost of the desire occupy the same sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A request does not become harmless merely because it promises protection from death.
THE ROOT
לִשְׁאֹל
lish'ol
GROWS FROM
שאל
sha'al
Ask, inquire, request.
“ask” in this verse is lish'ol. שָׁאוּל (Sha’ul, “asked-for”) is built from this same root, so the requested king bears the request in his name. The act of asking and the ruler it brings into view remain joined.
ALSO GROWS
Sha'ul: Asked-for; requested.
שָׁאוּל
The king’s name carries the people’s request into the person who answers it.
she'elah: Request; question.
שְׁאֵלָה
This noun makes explicit the request contained in the verb used here.
חַטֹּאתֵינוּ
ḥaṭṭōtēnū
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥṭʾ
Miss; miss the mark; go wrong.
“all our missing the mark” in this verse is ḥaṭṭōtēnū. The root gives “sins” the concrete sense of missings: the king-request is named as one more added to what is already there. The confession makes the desire part of an ongoing pattern of missing the way.
ALSO GROWS
chatta't: Missing; sin or offense.
חַטָּאת
This noun from the root names the accumulated “sins” in the people’s confession.
ḥōṭēʾ: One who misses; one who sins.
חֹטֵא
This form makes the root’s image of missing visible in the person who does it.
הוֹסַפְנוּ
hosafnu
GROWS FROM
יסף
yasaf
Add, increase, continue.
The verb makes the confession cumulative: the request is added to all the earlier missings. The verse presents it as an increase in what is already present, not as an isolated act.
ALSO GROWS
Yosef: Joseph; “may he add.”
יוֹסֵף
This name from the same root carries the sense of adding into a person’s name.
hosif: To add; to increase.
הוֹסִיף
This verb form shares the root behind “we have added” in the verse.
THE PATTERN
A request can be pursued or granted while carrying a cost its promise of security or satisfaction conceals.
And you shall cry out in that day because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; and the LORD will not answer you in that day.And he gave them their request, but sent thinness into their living soul.You ask, and do not take, because you ask badly, so that you may use it up upon your pleasures.THE THREAD
And he gave them their request, but sent thinness into their living soul.Psalm 106:15 uses מִשְׁאֲלוֹתָם (mish’alotam, “their requests”), from שׁאל (sha’al, “to ask”), the same root as “ask” here. The request is granted, yet the KJV says it brings “leanness” to נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “living soul”), showing how fulfillment can still leave life diminished.
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