What Does 1 Samuel 2:24 Mean?
No, my sons, for the report I hear is not good; you make the LORD's people cross over.
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
Nay, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: ye make the LORD’s people to transgress.THE KEY
The Hebrew pictures wrongdoing as a crossing someone can cause others to make too.
THE MEANING
Your choices can carry other people across a boundary into wrongdoing. The harm reaches the LORD’s people through the conduct that leads them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that wrongdoing stays private: this verse names conduct that carries others into the crossing too.
THE ROOT
מַעֲבִרִים
maʿăvîrîm
GROWS FROM
עבר
ʿ-b-r
To pass over, cross, or go through; in this causative form, to cause someone to cross.
“cross over” in this verse is maʿăvîrîm. The root holds the motion of crossing over inside “transgress.” In its causative form, the sons carry the LORD’s people across too, so the verse locates harm both in the crossing and in the influence that causes it.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: To pass over, cross, or go through.
עָבַר
The base verb pictures movement across a boundary; the verse shows the LORD’s people being carried across one.
maʿavār: A passage, crossing, or ford.
מַעֲבָר
The same root names a crossing place, giving “transgress” the image of movement over a boundary.
THE PATTERN
When conduct draws others into wrongdoing, the harm extends beyond the one who acts.
Whoever causes the straight ones to wander on an evil way, he himself shall fall into his own pit, but the whole ones shall possess good.But whoever causes one of these little ones who lean their weight into me to stumble, it is better for him that a donkey's millstone be hung about his neck, and that he be sunk down into the deep of the sea.So let us no longer judge one another, but judge this instead, that no one sets a stone to strike against, or a trap, in his brother's way.THE THREAD
And Moses said, Why now do you cross over the mouth of the LORD? But it shall not break through.“Transgress” in both verses comes from עבר (ʿ-b-r), to cross over. Numbers depicts people crossing the LORD’s command; Samuel adds the revealing detail that someone can cause the crossing in others.
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