What Does 1 Samuel 14:33 Mean?
Then they told Saul, saying, Behold, the people miss the mark against the LORD, in that they eat with the blood. And he said, You have broken away. Roll a great stone to me this day.
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 they told Saul, saying, Behold, the people sin against the LORD, in that they eat with the blood. And he said, Ye have transgressed: roll a great stone unto me this day.THE KEY
The verse moves from חטא, missing, to בגד, betrayal, making the people’s meal with the blood a breach in relationship.
THE MEANING
The verse places before you a boundary where appetite meets blood: the people eat with the blood, and Saul names the act betrayal against the LORD. The great stone brings the response into public, physical space. The scene binds what enters the mouth to relationship.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that meat can be treated as food while the blood carried in it is ignored.
THE ROOT
בְּגַדְתֶּם
begadtem
GROWS FROM
בגד
To act treacherously, to betray.
“broken away” in this verse is begadtem. Saul names the act with a root of betrayal, giving the violation a relational dimension. The word links the people’s concrete act of eating with blood to a breach of trust.
ALSO GROWS
boged: One who acts treacherously; a betrayer.
בֹּגֵד
This form shows the root describing a person whose actions break trust, echoing the way Saul names the people’s act.
begidah: Treachery; betrayal.
בְּגִידָה
This noun makes the relational force of Saul’s accusation visible: the act carries the shape of betrayal.
חֹטְאִים
chot'im
GROWS FROM
חטא
To miss, fail, or go wrong.
“miss the mark” in this verse is chot'im. The passage first names the people’s act as חטא, a missing, then Saul names it with a root of betrayal. Together the roots hold both a breached boundary and a damaged relationship.
ALSO GROWS
chet: A sin or missing.
חֵטְא
This noun carries the same root sense as the people’s act: something has gone wrong or missed its mark.
chatta't: Sin; an offering associated with sin.
חַטָּאת
The same root extends from the missing to the offering connected with it, keeping the language of the breach present in other scriptural settings.
לֶאֱכֹל
le'ekhol
GROWS FROM
אכל
To eat or consume.
“eat” in this verse is le'ekhol. The root reaches from the act of eating to the food itself, keeping the deed and what enters the mouth in one word family. Here the meal itself becomes the place where the blood boundary is crossed.
ALSO GROWS
okhel: Food; something eaten.
אֹכֶל
This noun links the act in the verse to the food being consumed.
ma'akhal: Food; an edible thing.
מַאֲכָל
This branch keeps the focus on what is taken in, sharpening the verse’s connection between appetite and blood.
THE PATTERN
The text binds blood to life and places a boundary around consuming it.
But flesh in its living soul, its blood, you shall not eat.And any man of the house of Israel, or of the sojourners among you, who eats any blood, I will set my face against that living soul which eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people.But that we write to them to hold off from the stains of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.THE THREAD
But flesh in its living soul, its blood, you shall not eat.Both verses join eating, אכל (akhal), with blood, דם (dam). Genesis names blood as the life of the flesh, and Samuel shows the breach that follows when the people eat with the blood.
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