What Does 1 Samuel 16:5 Mean?
And he said, In wholeness, I have come to sacrifice to the LORD. Set yourselves apart, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he set Jesse and his sons apart, and called them to the sacrifice.
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 he said, Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the LORD: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.THE KEY
The Hebrew word rendered “peaceably” is שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness), from the same root that names שְׁלָמִים (shelamim, peace offerings), so the approach to sacrifice carries an echo of shared well-being.
THE MEANING
The approach begins with shalom, then Jesse and his sons are set apart and called as a group to the sacrifice. Preparation becomes part of the gathering: the sacred act has a peaceful tone and a shared human setting. Wholeness and set-apartness meet in this movement toward the LORD.
THE ROOT
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole, complete, or sound.
“In wholeness” in this verse is shalom. The same root also gives the name for peace offerings, though the word for sacrifice in this verse is a different Hebrew term. That resonance lets “peaceably” carry wholeness and shared well-being into the scene without making sacrifice a synonym for peace.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole, complete, sound.
שָׁלֵם
It shows that the peace in shalom carries the sense of wholeness, not only an absence of conflict.
shelamim: Peace offerings, offerings of well-being.
שְׁלָמִים
This branch echoes the verse’s sacrificial gathering with the language of well-being, while remaining distinct from its word for sacrifice.
הִתְקַדְּשׁוּ
hitqaddeshu
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To set apart as sacred.
The command is reflexive: set yourselves apart. The same root names both the set-apart quality and the sanctuary, so the people are prepared as participants in a sacred gathering, not merely spectators.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart, sacred.
קָדוֹשׁ
It names the state the household enters through the act translated “sanctify.”
miqdash: Sanctuary, a set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
It shares the root that marks the people as set apart, linking the gathered participants with the sacred space.
THE PATTERN
Setting people apart prepares them to approach the sacred together.
And the LORD said to Moses, Go to the people, and set them apart today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes.Clean of hands and clear of heart, he who does not lift up his living soul to emptiness, nor swears in deceit.You also, as living stones, are built up into a house of breath, a set-apart priesthood, to carry up sacrifices of breath, well received by God through Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
You will keep in wholeness upon wholeness the one whose shaped mind rests upon you, for in you he leans his full weight.The word rendered “peaceably” here is שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness), the same word repeated in Isaiah’s “perfect peace.” In both verses, peace carries the sense of wholeness: here it names the quality of the approach, and there the settled state of the one whose mind rests on God.
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