What Does 1 Samuel 14:20 Mean?
And Saul and all the people with him called out and came to the battle, and, behold, every man's sword was against his fellow, and there was a very great uproar.
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 and all the people that were with him assembled themselves, and they came to the battle: and, behold, every man’s sword was against his fellow, and there was a very great discomfiture.THE KEY
The Hebrew word behind “discomfiture” carries the sense of tumult, and here the battle’s confusion turns every man’s sword against his own companion.
THE MEANING
This verse holds open a brutal possibility: danger can turn inward, so that a person’s weapon is raised against a companion. The violence remains plain, and the disorder is overwhelming.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that everyone fighting on the same side is safe from one another breaks here: each man’s sword is against his fellow.
THE ROOT
חֶרֶב
ḥerev
GROWS FROM
חרב
To dry up, lay waste, or become desolate.
The word for “sword” belongs to a family of words for desolation and ruin. When the sword turns against a companion, the instrument of devastation is turned inward, against the fighters’ own side.
ALSO GROWS
charav: To dry up, become waste, or be laid waste.
חָרַב
This verb reveals the desolating force carried in the word family that includes “sword.”
chorbah: Ruin or desolation.
חָרְבָּה
This branch gives the sword’s root family an image of the devastation that follows when its force is turned inward.
THE PATTERN
When conflict turns a group against itself, the force aimed outward becomes a force of internal destruction.
And the three hundred blew the horns, and the LORD set every man's sword against his companion, throughout all the camp; and the camp fled to Bethshittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abelmeholah, to Tabbath.For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the settlers of mount Seir, to have them devoted to destruction and to destroy them. When they had finished with the settlers of Seir, each one helped to destroy another.And if a governance be split against itself, that governance cannot stand.THE THREAD
And the three hundred blew the horns, and the LORD set every man's sword against his companion, throughout all the camp; and the camp fled to Bethshittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abelmeholah, to Tabbath.Both verses use חֶרֶב (ḥerev, sword) and describe each man’s sword against his fellow. The repeated Hebrew word and image reveal the same inward turn: the weapon does not distinguish an enemy from a companion.
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