What Does 1 Samuel 20:27 Mean?
And on the morrow, the second day of the month, David's place was missed. And Saul said to Jonathan his son, Why does the son of Jesse not come to the bread, neither yesterday nor today?
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 it came to pass on the morrow, which was the second day of the month, that David’s place was empty: and Saul said unto Jonathan his son, Wherefore cometh not the son of Jesse to meat, neither yesterday, nor to day?THE KEY
David’s place is not merely vacant; the Hebrew verb can mean both “attend to” and “muster,” making his absence something Saul actively registers.
THE MEANING
An absence becomes visible when a place is expected to be filled: the seat makes the missing presence countable. Saul notices David’s absence and immediately asks Jonathan to account for it, naming David as “the son of Jesse.”
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that absence leaves no trace. Here the empty place itself registers David’s missing presence and provokes a question.
THE ROOT
וַיִּפָּקֵד
wayyippāqēd
GROWS FROM
פקד
p-q-d
To attend to or visit; to muster or count.
The Hebrew says David’s place “was missed,” using a form of פקד, a root also used for attending to, visiting, and mustering. The absence is more than an empty space: it is registered because attention is already fixed on who should be there.
ALSO GROWS
pequddah: Oversight, charge, appointment, or visitation.
פְּקֻדָּה
The root’s language of oversight shows how a missing presence can become something noticed and accounted for.
paqîd: An overseer or appointed officer.
פָּקִיד
This branch carries the root into the role of one assigned to watch over or attend to something, echoing Saul’s scrutiny of David’s place.
THE PATTERN
Attention makes what is missing or overlooked visible, and that attention can become action.
And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as he had spoken.What is a frail one that you remember him, and the son of man that you visit him?Let the LORD God of Israel be spoken well of, for he has looked upon and redeemed his people,THE THREAD
And the people leaned their weight on it, and they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their bending low. Then they bent their heads and bowed down.The Hebrew root פקד (pāqad, “attend to” or “visit”) underlies both the report that David’s place “was empty” and the report that the LORD “had visited” Israel. In one scene it marks a person missing from a table; in the other, a people whose affliction has been seen.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us