What Does 1 Samuel 14:44 Mean?
And Saul answered, God do so, and add more, for you shall surely die, Jonathan.
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 answered, God do so and more also: for thou shalt surely die, Jonathan.THE KEY
Hebrew doubles the root for “die,” turning Saul’s words into a sentence spoken with absolute certainty.
THE MEANING
You hear a human voice invoke God and sentence another person to die. The doubled death-word gives the declaration the force of absolute certainty.
THE ROOT
מוֹת תָּמוּת
môt tâmût
GROWS FROM
מות
mût
to die; death
“surely die” in this verse is môt tâmût. The line repeats the root מות: first as an infinitive, then as “you will die”; English carries the emphasis in “surely.” That doubled root presses Saul’s threat into the form of a verdict.
ALSO GROWS
māvet: death
מָוֶת
This noun names the outcome contained in the root Saul repeats.
mēt: dead; deceased
מֵת
This branch names the state that Saul’s sentence says Jonathan will enter.
hēmît: to cause to die; put to death
הֵמִית
This causative form makes explicit the action carried by Saul’s threat.
THE PATTERN
Oaths bind speech to a curse so a human demand or threat sounds unavoidable.
And he said, What is the word that the LORD has spoken to you? I pray you, do not hide it from me. God do so to you, and more also, if you hide from me any of all the words that he spoke to you.When day came, certain of the Jews twisted themselves together and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had lifted Paul out of the way.THE THREAD
But from the tree of knowing good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.Genesis uses the same doubled form of מות, “surely die.” There it states a consequence tied to eating; Saul uses the emphatic death-language as a sentence against Jonathan.
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