What Does 1 Samuel 18:24 Mean?
And the servants of Saul told him, Thus David spoke.
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 servants of Saul told him, saying, On this manner spake David.THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind both “words” and “spake” is one seed, joining David’s speech with the words his servants carry to Saul.
THE MEANING
Your words can keep moving after you leave the room: another person carries them onward, and someone else receives them. Here, Saul’s servants tell him what David says, so David’s speech reaches Saul through their telling.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that words vanish once spoken: they can remain present through the people who carry them onward.
THE ROOT
דְּבָרִים
devarim
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
d-b-r
To speak; its noun form can mean a word, matter, or affair.
“words / spake” in this verse is devarim. Hebrew uses forms of one root for both the reported “words” and David’s act of speaking. The root can also name a matter, so what is spoken is joined to the substance being carried into Saul’s hearing.
ALSO GROWS
devarim: Words, sayings, or matters
דְּבָרִים
This is the word the servants use to refer to what David said; it shares its root with the verb for speaking.
dibber: He spoke
דִּבֶּר
This is the verb describing David’s speech, from the same root as the reported words.
THE PATTERN
Words cross the boundary of a speaker’s presence when listeners carry them onward.
Now it came to be, when they had heard all the words, that they were afraid, each man toward his neighbor, and said to Baruch, We will surely tell the king of all these words.And John's disciples told him of all these things.And he reported to us how he had seen a messenger in his house, who stood and said to him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter.THE THREAD
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield, and your very great wages.The Hebrew דְּבַר (devar, “word”) in Genesis 15:1 comes from the same ד־ב־ר (d-b-r, “speak/word”) root that joins “words” and “spake” here. There, the word comes speaking; here, David’s spoken words travel from one person to another.
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