What Does 1 Samuel 17:27 Mean?
And the people answered him according to this word, saying, So it will be done for the man who kills him.
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 the people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man that killeth him.THE KEY
Before the blow is struck, the crowd’s דָּבָר (dābār, “word/matter”) has already made the killing a public bargain.
THE MEANING
The promise is spoken as an exchange: the man who kills him receives the outcome already named. The Hebrew keeps the act physical, a strike, and its consequence public; no softer word removes the violence from the bargain.
THE ROOT
יַכֶּנּוּ
yakkénnu
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
נָכָה (nākâ): to strike, smite, or hit; context makes the strike fatal here.
The verb behind “killeth” is the strike or smite verb; the fatal result comes from the context, while the root keeps the bodily impact in view. Its branch מַכָּה (makkāh, “blow/plague”) shows how English “kill” compresses the image of striking into its outcome.
ALSO GROWS
makkāh: A blow, wound, or plague.
מַכָּה
The same root can name the blow and, by extension, a plague; the violence here remains an impact, not an abstraction.
nākēh: Stricken or disabled.
נָכֶה
This branch keeps attention on the body affected by the strike.
כַּדָּבָר
ka-dābār
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
דָּבָר (dābār): word, matter, or thing; the verbal root means to speak.
English “manner” sounds like a way of behaving, but the Hebrew idiom is “according to this word/matter.” The crowd’s speech names the concrete arrangement itself: the man who strikes Goliath will have this outcome.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: A word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The crowd’s “manner” is also the matter being declared and settled.
dibbēr: To speak or declare.
דִּבֵּר
The same root links the spoken declaration with the concrete matter it names.
THE PATTERN
A specified deed carries a named reward or consequence.
And Caleb said, Whoever strikes Kiriath-sepher and seizes it, to him I will give my daughter Achsah as a wife.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.Look, I come swiftly, and my wages are with me, to give back to each one as his work will be.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.The crowd’s כַּדָּבָר (ka-dābār, “according to this word/matter”) names the arrangement that will follow the strike. Psalm 33:6 uses the same root, דָּבָר (dābār, “word”), for the word through which the heavens are made.
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